Metzen and his team should retire?

[Eligor]

My point isn't whether or not these thematic elements should or should not be there, my point is that it shouldn't be a focus. If it happens at all, it should happen on accident, if you will. If statements about things such as global poverty or the need to vote happen to be made without trying to, so be it.

Global poverty or the need to vote aren't "social commentary or philosophical inferences". In any case, my point was (if I didn't state it clearly enough before) that if you treat your story and fictional universe seriously enough while aiming (in general) to tell an exciting story, then deeper themes will emerge themselves, without the need to self-consciously write them in. For example if your story happens to include an evil dictator as a major character and you would write him with the aim of making him and his actions as convincing as possible, which includes understanding what sort of a man he is, why did he become a dictator, et cetera, then you get two things: first - your story becomes more immersive and gripping, because the character is more real, complex, unpredictable and interesting; and second - your story would end up saying something about dictators and government and the moral and psychological issues connected with wielding power. That would be "social commentary and philosophical inference".

Also, the argument isn't whether or not games should remain simplistic, but rather that they should remain gameplay focused with the plot as a mechanism to further the gameplay. For example, the most interesting aspect of StarCraft to me pertains to the Xel'Naga. There's almost no real-life connections you can make and, if there are, they're accidental. They are simply a gameplay-plot mechanism.

Actually, the Xel'Naga are clearly inspired by the Old Ones in H.P. Lovecraft's "At the Mountains of Madness". And there are plenty of real life connexions, from actual theories that life on Earth was engineered by alien species billions of years ago (however crackpot or credible) to the moral issues of genetic engineering and humankind's attempts to control and shape nature to its will. And how exactly are they a "gameplay-plot mechanism"? If anything they're very much part of the backstory with some involvement in present events, and would have been as effective and interesting plot element in a movie, or a book or a graphic novel.

Another point I was making was that a game should be a game. I remember before I had Netflix, I also loved long cutscenes in games. Now, I have Netflix and, if I'm in the mood for cutscenes, I watch a movie. That has severely diminished my patience with cutscenes because I get my "cutscene fix" through movies.. which is fine. You can't interact with a movie; you can a game. Let books be about higher thinking and imagining the world, let movies be more about telling (showing if you must) these higher thinking elements in a visual format, and let games remain games and gameplay oriented.

So all books must expound the theory of relativity or be a collection of sociological essays, all movies be stories made with the purpose of illuminating and commenting upon those theories and essays and games be just dumb? This is the silliest thing I've read in a while. Nothing is ever that compartmentalized, and would be terribly boring had it been. Should all games stay on a level of Super Mario Bros?

And in any case, part of the beauty of computer games is that you can have both gameplay AND all those artistic and intellectual things you get in books and movies and as much of both as you may want or like, they are not mutually exclusive. Deus Ex and Silent Hill are not the worse for presenting and involving and layered story, without it they wouldn't be the classics they are.

[pure.Wasted]

For example, the most interesting aspect of StarCraft to me pertains to the Xel'Naga. There's almost no real-life connections you can make and, if there are, they're accidental. They are simply a gameplay-plot mechanism.

You'd think so... but you'd be wrong. "Xel'Naga" sounds alien and beyond our ability to relate to. But if you say instead "obsessive scientists who get in way over their heads," which they are (or were in SC1, anyway), and suddenly there's a lot of common ground ripe for exploration. If you say instead "creatures reproducing in a way that is natural to them" (which seems to be true in SC2), now we can find something interesting and new to latch on to.

The Zerg and Protoss races dying out just so the Xel'Naga can be reborn sounds pretty evil. Make the argument that all they are is ... the galactic equivalent to sperm, and suddenly it doesn't sound quite as malevolent. It's not about making those statements, it's about reaching a state of writing where those statements come naturally, weaving into your plot and story and adding to it.

Another point I was making was that a game should be a game. I remember before I had Netflix, I also loved long cutscenes in games. Now, I have Netflix and, if I'm in the mood for cutscenes, I watch a movie. That has severely diminished my patience with cutscenes because I get my "cutscene fix" through movies.. which is fine.

Anecdotal evidence does not an argument make. Just because you have Netflix and suddenly no longer want long cutscenes in games doesn't mean that I, who also have Netflix, no longer want long cutscenes in games. I don't mean to get argumentative, I'm just saying that your experience with different entertainment media is hardly an objective foundation, so you should be careful of assuming that it's somehow inherently correct.

You can't interact with a movie; you can a game.

I beg to differ. What are DVD alternate endings if not interaction? I'm telling the movie, "I prefer things to play out this way." The DVD for Clue actually allows you to set the ending (one out of three) to random, so there's no way to know how the film ends until you watch it. Personally, I think the line is getting blurrier and blurrier (mostly from the games' direction now, but in the future that won't necessarily be true).

Let books be about higher thinking and imagining the world, let movies be more about telling (showing if you must) these higher thinking elements in a visual format, and let games remain games and gameplay oriented. Games are meant to be the interactive format and the plot furthers the gameplay. That's why, say, there's so many henchman of a protagonist; there needs to be mini-bosses spread out through the game. A game has to have, say, these epic battles because it makes the game interesting. Picture the difference between God Of War and, say, an video game version of, say, 'Hereafter'. Just wouldn't work.

Visuals aren't unique to film. Comic books also have it. So why are you so set on allowing film to wander into "higher thinking elements in a visual format"? Maybe we should leave that exclusively to comic books, since they're almost like books anyway! It's perfect! Except it isn't. It would limit the art form unnecessarily. The only reason you're OK with film being used to express deeper ideas is that you're used to it, you've seen it all your life, and it's nothing new. Meanwhile it is something new for games. All this is is reactionary conservative knee-jerking. If interactivity was as inherently amazing as you suggest, I'm pretty sure legions of fans wouldn't be telling Blizzard to go back to linear storytelling.

Have you ever played BioShock? It's an amazingly fun adventure/horror FPS... built entirely on the premise of a theme. "What would happen if people actually adopted Ayn Rand's beliefs?" That theme dictates the setting, it dictates the characters, it dictates the story, it dictates your abilities and how you get them. It also happened to win countless GOTY awards. Apparently building an entire game out of an idea actually works pretty well.

One mistake you're making is assuming that "ideas" and "plot" are at odds... or, if not at odds, at the very least separate. The truth, as you'll see by my list of examples a little down the line, is that when you have a good writer in charge, they go TOGETHER. The ideas FEED the plot and make the plot interesting. Doesn't matter if it's a movie with one bad guy or a game that needs "henchmen."

I'd like to get back to the idea of solving what problems WOL might have for a second. Specifically to clarify that the stuff Eligor and I were throwing around is, unfortunately, not really a be-all and end-all solution. Saying "well if they'd just had the Kel-Morian Combine representing 21st century America in the game, everything would have been 10x better!" doesn't really work. As Eligor pointed out in post 81, Blizzard actually had a lot of good ideas going into this game.

-A genuine mutiny aboard the Hyperion would have been great, to show that a nice "We can do it!" speech, or two, just doesn't cut it when the people who work for you need to eat every day. What do we see of that in the final game? One "we can do it!" speech in the Cantina and all ills are immediately cured.
-How about Tosh? The potential for the story surrounding him was immense! Not only do you have a mysterious, cool new breed of supersoldier, but these guys just might be worse than anybody Raynor's ever dealt with in the past. Talk about your "ends justify the means" philosophy. The problem is Blizzard treated the "Better Future" cinematic as a conclusion to the arc, when in fact it was obviously only the jumping off point. That's when things were getting interesting. Did Raynor make a mistake breaking those bad guys out of prison, and now they're out there terrorizing the countryside? Was it just Dominion propaganda all along? Or does Tosh continue to tread the line ambiguously, never making Raynor regret helping him, but always keeping Raynor on his toes? Not only did Blizzard end the arc just when it got interesting, they pretty much tied their own hands by saying "we're not going to bring up branching elements again, so as not to sabotage your idea of what choices you made."
-How about Raynor's guilt over what happened to Tychus? Tychus spent nearly ten years in Folsom for him, never ratted out Raynor, and Raynor never even TRIED to stage a break out attempt to get his friend out. Great material here alluded to by the game... but not once followed through on the way it should have been.
-Was Ariel Hanson really a Zerg agent in disguise the way Tosh suggested? -How did Valerian manage to convince half the fleet to go with him to Char? -Was Mengsk only feigning surprise, when his own plan obviously involved Tychus getting close to Kerrigan? All of these are interesting ideas that are never resolved.

Answering any one of these could have made the story more dramatic and the plot more dense, more intricate, more exciting to follow. Imagine that after you get out of Mar Sara, 3-4 missions later you get a cinematic where half of the crew stage that mutiny in a cinematic. Immediately after, we get a mission aboard the Hyperion where you use Raynor/Tychus/Swann as combat units and have to kill your own guys who are trying to take control of the ship. Now Raynor's supplies are dwindling... which is why he's FORCED to accept Tosh's request to mine ore on Redstone as a mercenary. We get ideas, we get drama, we get explosions, and we have story progression. All in one neat, beautiful package.

Imagine that following the break-out of New Folsom, when Raynor stages his assault on Korhal itself, we have Tosh helping on the ground (you'd think Spectres might come in handy in an attack on Mengsk's core world)... but while Tosh is helping, some of his Spectres begin to kill civilians. The more civilians die, the less cash reward you get for this mission (to show the public turning against Raynor). If you want to keep the civilians alive you can kill Tosh's troublesome spectres, but then you get less help against Mengsk. Drama, gameplay, interactivity, story progression, and all we would have to lose is Tosh randomly mining Terrazine for an entire mission. Couldn't the Terrazine have been on Redstone, and mining minerals on Redstone simply been his cover for looking for the stash?

The more conflicted the characters become, the more interesting it is to follow their story. The more twists and turns you can create. Who'll side with whom? How far can Tosh's spectres push Raynor before he gives up on them and admits he was wrong for breaking them out, and has inadvertantly unleashed a terror upon the innocent populace? The seeds for all of this are planted in the game, but only the seeds. As I believe Nicol said, WOL is a lot of disconnected plot threads with no resolutions. It's a mass of great ideas that never made it past the brainstorming stage.

The easiest way to avoid making this mistake in HOTS is to make sure that every single mission is being used to do EVERYTHING it could possibly do. Getting every character as involved in the missions as possible. Raising the stakes by making the conflicts less black-and-white, the protagonists less right and the antagonists less wrong. If a mission doesn't have a plot twist of some sort (Cut-Throat's one random mercenary we don't care about betraying the other random mercenary we don't care about isn't a plot twist...), it's failing. If it doesn't allow characters to get angry at each other and question their own morals, it's failing. If it isn't progressing three storylines while simultaneously resolving a fourth, it's failing. Those might be ridiculously high standards, but if Blizz works with that in mind and achieves only half of it, that will still be a considerable improvement.

[TheEconomist]

Both of you, look. I don't have time as I used to to write up a big wall of text about basically nothing. I kept my posts short, and, therefore, more easily misinterpretable becaue I have no intension of spending fifteen minutes typing something. Nevertheless, I am amazed at the continuous misinterpretations.

@Eligor:

So all books must expound the theory of relativity or be a collection of sociological essays, all movies be stories made with the purpose of illuminating and commenting upon those theories and essays and games be just dumb?

It's been eons since I've seen such a gross misinterpretation of a post .. and from you no less. I expected much better and, quite frankly, I'm astounded that it was you to have done this.

My point, yet again, was simply to mention the unique methods of storytelling that each form provide. The uniqueness of storytelling that books provide is that you can imagine the world yourself and typically have higher themes that either movies or games. Movies are similar to books but in a visual format. It's uniqueness is in that it is comprised of moving images. Games are, simply, games. They are meant to be played. You interact with them by pushing a button or moving a mouse. It's primary focus is to engross you in a setting by directly interacting with it. Therefore, the story should be a method to further the gameplay. Just as movies use camera angles and what not to further the story and books use the language on the page

And there are plenty of real life connexions, from actual theories that life on Earth was engineered by alien species billions of years ago

Yes, and I've commented on this in this very forum. My point is that it's accidental (for lack of a better word) because that is not a focus (yet) in StarCraft 2.

And how exactly are they a "gameplay-plot mechanism"?

They are put there to set up a future enemy, to give depth to the races you're playing, and to provide motivation to the actions in the story. Pretty much everything EXCEPT to give a "commentary" on the possibility of, say, humans being created by aliens.

And in any case, part of the beauty of computer games is that you can have both gameplay AND all those artistic and intellectual things you get in books and movies and as much of both as you may want or like, they are not mutually exclusive.

You're looking at it the wrong way.

Let's say in an abstract way, there was a conflict in movies between providing good camera direction (catering to the purpose of a movie; moving images) and telling (ehem, SHOWING) a higher level theme. In reality, they go hand-in-hand, but, for this purpose, let's say this was a possibility. Would you rather have a movie with good direction even if the storytelling suffered or would you rather the movie succeed at the entire purpose of a movie; the imagines (ignoring music, acting, etc). Likewise, would you rather a game create a plot which provided you with awesome places to game in and likeable heroes/hateable villains or would you rather it tell a higher level story. Like I said, it's unavoidable that a plot element will contain these, but, like you said, it shouldn't be forced. So you agree with me here. This was entirely unnecessary.

Deus Ex and Silent Hill are not the worse for presenting and involving and layered story, without it they wouldn't be the classics they are.

Deus Ex had terrific gameplay. Silent Hill? Meh. I never liked it. Quite possibly for the very reasons you enjoyed it. That's why I presented my post as an OPINION; not an argument or a fact.

-----------

@pure.Wasted

Anecdotal evidence does not an argument make. Just because you have Netflix and suddenly no longer want long cutscenes in games doesn't mean that I, who also have Netflix, no longer want long cutscenes in games. I don't mean to get argumentative, I'm just saying that your experience with different entertainment media is hardly an objective foundation, so you should be careful of assuming that it's somehow inherently correct.

*facepalm*

All I was doing was sharing my opinion. Why then did you turn this into a debate? Anecdotal evidence does not an argument make? I wasn't making an argument. I was giving an example to demonstrate clearly my OPINION so you would understand my OPINION. I was not trying to debate, argue, or prove anything other than that this is my opinion and why it changed.

You'd think so... but you'd be wrong. "Xel'Naga" sounds alien and beyond our ability to relate to. But if you say instead "obsessive scientists who get in way over their heads," which they are (or were in SC1, anyway), and suddenly there's a lot of common ground ripe for exploration. If you say instead "creatures reproducing in a way that is natural to them" (which seems to be true in SC2), now we can find something interesting and new to latch on to.

What part of "accidental" didn't you understand? I don't mean to sound harhsh. just asking you to help me help you understand what I'm trying to say as I'm obviously failing at it.

What are DVD alternate endings if not interaction?

You aren't moving or controlling the characters. That's what I meant. I don't have time to go so in-depth with my posts so you'll have to take them as they are and stop nitpicking. I even thought of this when I wrote my post but I had assumed you would understand what I meant.

Visuals aren't unique to film. Comic books also have it

Ironically, I've been reading Spawn comic much of today. I know of this media form. However, it was not listed, therefore, out of the three, the primary unnique trait of movies is the visual, moving images. YES, I KNOW GAMES HAVE VISUALS .... but that's not the point. Interaction is the primary unique trait of a game.
I must refer to the above.

The only reason you're OK with film being used to express deeper ideas is that you're used to it, you've seen it all your life, and it's nothing new.

No. The reason is that I go to a movie for these themes. I play a game to .. well ... play a game.

One mistake you're making is assuming that "ideas" and "plot" are at odds... or, if not at odds, at the very least separate. The truth, as you'll see by my list of examples a little down the line, is that when you have a good writer in charge, they go TOGETHER. The ideas FEED the plot and make the plot interesting. Doesn't matter if it's a movie with one bad guy or a game that needs "henchmen."

Considering all of the times I've repeated myself and clarified this, how is that you still hold on to the belief that the opposite of this is what I'm saying?

Read above.

As for your examples, yes, they would help. However, their primary purpose IS NOT to tell (damnit, excuse me, SHOW) a theme in the same way that, say, Death of a Salesmen is meant to give a social commentary or the movie V for Vendetta is to give a political inference. These examples of yours are simply, as I lazily called them "gameplay-plot" mechanics. And, you proved this yourself in your own post.

Answering any one of these could have made the story more dramatic and the plot more dense, more intricate, more exciting to follow. Imagine that after you get out of Mar Sara, 3-4 missions later you get a cinematic where half of the crew stage that mutiny in a cinematic. Immediately after, we get a mission aboard the Hyperion where you use Raynor/Tychus/Swann as combat units and have to kill your own guys who are trying to take control of the ship. Now Raynor's supplies are dwindling... which is why he's FORCED to accept Tosh's request to mine ore on Redstone as a mercenary. We get ideas, we get drama, we get explosions, and we have story progression. All in one neat, beautiful package.

EXACTLY WHAT I'M SAYING!!!

These themes would provide the game with, wait for it, GAMEPLAY. Therefore, the theme is justified. Imagine, though, if these were in but had no effect on the gameplay in the way that you mentioned. What would the purpose be then? I'm saying do not add the extra layers unless it benefits the game and the ends justifies the means.

The rest of your post is exactly what I'm saying, but, as you noticed, you never mentioned a single way (that I bothered to read) that these elements DIRECTLY AND PURPOSEFULLY correlated with the real world. Therefore, I now have the strong belief that you agree with me, this was huge waste of time that was simply caused by the fact that you thouht I was aiming my post at you instead of giving a general statement of my own opinion.

I guess an easier way to put what I'm saying is; When Chris Metzen (or whoever) created the Xel'Naga, they wanted a race that would provide the things mentioned above. THEY WERE NOT creating these aliens to make a statement or to warn "obsessive scientists who get in way over their heads" to stop being so obsessed. Likewise, they were not making an anti-Nazi statement through the Zerg about blondly following the Overmind (Let's say Overmind = Hitler). Yes, it's a ridiculous example. But, it's late, I shouldn't need anything else since none of you have even countered my post (can you even counter an opinion?), and I've grown bored of typing over nothing.
---

Actually, the Xel'Naga are clearly inspired by the Old Ones in H.P. Lovecraft's "At the Mountains of Madness"

There's similarities going back farther than that I would imagine.

[DemolitionSquid]

@ PW: Please stop arguing with TF. Its getting as pathetic as me arguing with Archer. They're both mindless arrogant elitist twits.

[TheEconomist]

They're both mindless arrogant elitist twits.

Giving an opinion makes me mindless, arrogant, and elitist? How ya figure?

Oh, that's right. You can't read my posts You're just trolling. Just like you thanked pure.wasted simply for disagreeing with me (when, in actuality, as far as I can tell, he isn't ), you're telling him to stop arguing with me because you think it'll upset me.

[pure.Wasted]

The rest of your post is exactly what I'm saying, but, as you noticed, you never mentioned a single way (that I bothered to read) that these elements DIRECTLY AND PURPOSEFULLY correlated with the real world.

Sorry if the length of my posts makes them harder to read. In the hope that Blizzard does actually venture outside of its own talent to get ideas and feedback, I like to make suggestions as detailed as possible. Who knows who might end up reading?

The mutiny aboard the Hyperion would "directly and purposefully [correlate] with the real world" by demonstrating that it isn't enough to have good intentions. Heck it might not even be enough to have good intentions and do good things, because in the Raiders' case they need money and maybe the only way to get money is to do BAD things. Raid some private corporation's facilities to steal something they can sell on the black market, etc.

When I made up this mutiny example, I didn't start with the idea of gameplay (RPG mission aboard the Hyperion, what fun!). I started with the idea, with the theme of subverting stereotypical heroes (Raynor) by having them meet with the brick wall of reality. Given that idea, I came up with a unique mission premise that could take advantage of it, I came up with a dramatic context for it within the story, I came up with a way to tie it in with the other stories. But all of that came later.

Nothing about the mutiny or its thematic significance here happened by accident. That it might SEEM accidental amidst the action-packed gameplay and the character drama would simply mean that the writer succeeded. And while I agree that ideas without properly compelling presentation are useless (if you want just ideas, read an essay, right?)... that doesn't mean that ideas aren't at the very heart of the writing process.

[TheEconomist]

AH HA! AT LAST! wE ARE MAKING GROUND!!! I believe I now understand the cause of confusion.

Let's say you were the sole creator of StarCraft 2 and you put these cut scenes in. Would your purpose for creating these cinematics be to create a better game or have the player leave the game understanding that "it isn't enough to have good intentions". Sure, they could leave with that morale, but it's accidental. I doubt it's your purpose.

I started with the idea, with the theme of subverting stereotypical heroes (Raynor) by having them meet with the brick wall of reality.

Yes, yes, but you did not set out to teach a morale such as "it isn't enough to have good intentions" that, when the player is done, will continue to think about this philosophy. No, it simply provided him with an entertaining escape. You are starting with a idea that would be beneficial to the plot; not an idea that is supposed to influence the player into your way of thinking in the way that a movie, book, or whatever else might.

I edited this into my above post, but, understandably, you missed it as it was put in a few minutes later.

I guess an easier way to put what I'm saying is; When Chris Metzen (or whoever) created the Xel'Naga, they wanted a race that would provide the things mentioned above. THEY WERE NOT creating these aliens to make a statement or to warn "obsessive scientists who get in way over their heads" to stop being so obsessed. Likewise, they were not making an anti-Nazi statement through the Zerg about blondly following the Overmind (Let's say Overmind = Hitler). Yes, it's a ridiculous example. But, it's late, I shouldn't need anything else since none of you have even countered my post (can you even counter an opinion?), and I've grown bored of typing over nothing.

Of course, like I said, a person could very well play a game for these themes. That's why my post was presented as an opinion.
....

If only DSquid could read this

[Arkalis]

@ PW: Please stop arguing with TF. Its getting as pathetic as me arguing with Archer. They're both mindless arrogant elitist twits.

He is just different because his bashing partner is MIA

[TheEconomist]

What?

[pure.Wasted]

@ PW: Please stop arguing with TF. Its getting as pathetic as me arguing with Archer. They're both mindless arrogant elitist twits.

I've been away from here for so long that I now feel like I have 1000 bonus pool points for patience.

Let's say you were the sole creator of StarCraft 2 and you put these cut scenes in. Would your purpose for creating these cinematics be to create a better game or have the player leave the game understanding that "it isn't enough to have good intentions". Sure, they could leave with that morale, but it's accidental. I doubt it's your purpose.

Yes, yes, but you did not set out to teach a morale such as "it isn't enough to have good intentions" that, when the player is done, will continue to think about this philosophy. No, it simply provided him with an entertaining escape. You are starting with a idea that would be beneficial to the plot; not an idea that is supposed to influence the player into your way of thinking in the way that a movie, book, or whatever else might.

It sounds like we might have been violently agreeing all along.

This is why I made such a big deal of differentiating between "showing" and "telling" earlier, despite the fact that you simply say you picked the first word that came to mind. There's a difference. When you're TELLING, you're trying to teach people something about life. When you're SHOWING, you're doing nothing but making interesting observations that will A) make the experience more interesting immediately and B) leave people thinking about stuff long after they're done. And showing should (almost?) always be the goal of the fiction writer.

As far back as my first post here, my recommendation wasn't to get someone to toss stuff in blindly -- "stuff" is already in the game, it is simply, in some cases, malnourished and malformed. Instead my recommendation was for Blizzard to hire some talent from outside their comfort zone (low-fare from games industry/comics industry/sci-fi/fantasy books) who would help focus all of these ideas and refine them into something great.