All Gaming Narrative is Wrong

[Starglider]

That's why you use game design to limit, depreciate or hide options that aren't covered by the static content.

Of course, but that inevitably limits the kind of games you can make. The problem is essentially player expectations. If you control player expectations so that they never expect to interact with humans naturally, you're fine. 'Hardcore' gamers may well self-limit their expectations so effectively that it isn't a problem for them either, though it still isn't ideal. However if you are trying to provide a giant open world filled with widely varied challenges and realistic 'people', then you are going to run into this problem. And it is a problem, because that is what games like Oblivion are sold as, and it is clearly what a lot of gamers would like to see.

NPC dialog sucks because fantasy writing sucks, not because of 'technology' or lack of AI.

The problem is that players are getting more and more freedom in some parts of the game, and that makes the total lack of freedom in other parts of the game more annoying. You are saying 'well developers should learn to hide the rails better - or just not bother trying to make open world games'. Hiding or running away from the problem is not the same as solving the problem - and this wouldn't annoy me as much if I didn't think that the problem is actually solvable with less 'magic' than is commonly believed.

On the bright side there is potentially a lot of money in this, selling both titles and engine technology. After all the two best selling PC games of all time are The Sims and The Sims 2 - which used cutting edge game AI for their time, and look exactly like several early 'embodied agent' research projects. There have been a few start ups that focused on game AI, all failed to date (AFAIK), but some one will eventually crack it and they will probably make a lot of money in short order.

You can have a 'causal narrative' WITHOUT trying to be super open and GTA mega awesome simulated universe. 'Causal' doesn't mean '100% everything you do changes the world omg emergent story'.

What's your point then? Branching stories are an improvement on completely linear ones? Yes, we knew that. 'Writers should write better'? No, really? Do you have a practical suggestion, presumably one not related to character AI?

[Stark]

Gee thanks uncle starglider! We all wanted to know more about the vaguely related content generation industry!

Ps my point is you're an idiot. Like I said, your giant posts are only relevant if you're a black-White moron. The OP's issues are easily resolved by - sorry to say - better design and writing. We don't actually have to talk about ai at all.

Sorry.

[ray245]

Stark is right. Interaction/= story.

The whole talk of story within a game reminds me of the call of duty series, where it manages to give you a pretty decent backstory without the need of over explaining things.

Game stories becomes more and more ridiculous when people tried to over-explain things, just to satisfy the fan boys.

[Sarevok]

Gee thanks uncle starglider! We all wanted to know more about the vaguely related content generation industry!

Ps my point is you're an idiot. Like I said, your giant posts are only relevant if you're a black-White moron. The OP's issues are easily resolved by - sorry to say - better design and writing. We don't actually have to talk about ai at all.

Sorry.

lol wut ?

Care to explain in detail how you intend to solve this problems instead of just saying "u suck" ? The ideas Starglider outlined was quite sound in light of how the game industry is progressing. You just expressed a personal opinion instead of using any actual reason or logic.

[General Zod]

Gee thanks uncle starglider! We all wanted to know more about the vaguely related content generation industry!

Ps my point is you're an idiot. Like I said, your giant posts are only relevant if you're a black-White moron. The OP's issues are easily resolved by - sorry to say - better design and writing. We don't actually have to talk about ai at all.

Sorry.

lol wut ?

Care to explain in detail how you intend to solve this problems instead of just saying "u suck" ? The ideas Starglider outlined was quite sound in light of how the game industry is progressing. You just expressed a personal opinion instead of using any actual reason or logic.

Like not writing fanservicey bullshit and knowing something about pacing? You don't need super-ultra-mega-advanced AI to make a game not suck.

[Stark]

lol wut ?

Care to explain in detail how you intend to solve this problems instead of just saying "u suck" ? The ideas Starglider outlined was quite sound in light of how the game industry is progressing. You just expressed a personal opinion instead of using any actual reason or logic.

Fuck off dickshit. Starglider's shit is TOTALLY IRRELEVANT unless you accept his bullshit assumptions (ie, that 'causal narrative' = 'giant open-world freeform dynamic plot universe'). This is not true. As I've repeatedly said - and you're too fucking stupid to read - the OP issues with linear narratives can be solved (and have been already by people smarter than you) using decent design and writing without magic AI procedural everything.

Frankly, saying his ideas are 'sound' (when they're irrelevant soapboxing) because of 'how the game industry is progressing' is fucking hilarious. Have you looked at a modern game? PS, they're in many ways moving AWAY from dynamic towards linear play and content. That is, arguably, the real point behind the OP - not that it's impossible or that games as a medium can't do it or whatever the fuck Starglider is smoking, but that NOBODY EVEN TRIES. Slap a bunch of linear fantasy-trope quests into a licenced 3d engine and instant finished game. The lack of 'causal narrative' is a result of laziness, not a lack of AI funding. It's arguable that the market that cares about 'story' are those that WANT a linear, 'uncovered as you go along' style story instead of an emergent one. After all, these are the people who say Mass Effect had good writing.

So next time you want to show up and suck Starglider's dick, try not to make yourself look fucking stupid in the process. Not every discussion needs to be hijacked into talking about ZOMG TEH AIZ.

[Bounty]

Explain to me how a movie is really that much different in narrative than a game that basically plays out the same way

...

The criticism fails due to lack of actually even saying anything, aside from 'Metroid has bad narrative'.

Your criticism of the criticism fails due to lack of reading comprehension?

It's really quite simple. In movies, and books, and plays, and any other type of creative outlet used to convey a story and only convey a story, you are presented with a completed narrative which cannot in any way be derailed or modified, and the artist has complete control over that narrative. In a game, however, you are given the illusion of being in control of the narrative as the main character. But the bulk of game developers don't actually do anything to sustain that illusion. They simply take the non-interactive plot from another medium - say, a story about a soldier shooting aliens - and squeeze it in between sections of gameplay mechanic. At best you might get a branching plotline once in a while, but overall, it doesn't really matter what you do in the game as long as you end up ticking a set of pre-defined boxes that lets you progress to the next cutscene.

What the article is arguing is that very few, if any, developers actually take advantage of gaming as an interactive medium by having a plot that follows your decision and not the one from a script writer in an office somewhere. Compare it to early TV shows that were basically radio programs with a camera pointed at the presenter; sure, a new bulletin that consisted of an image of a man reading the news highlights was technically TV, but it wasn't until the addition of graphics and visual reports that you could really say television came into its own. Likewise, playing a game where you fly a spaceship shooting alien blobs that once in a while cuts away to a story about spaceships shooting alien blobs is technically a gaming narrative, but there is very little interaction between the plot and what you do as a gamer.

And, again, that is not in itself a bad thing if that's what the developer is going for. If the point is just to have some sort of framework for the action on-screen then some cutscenes to tie together the levels are fine. But that still leaves a huge well of untapped potential for video games that are actually video gaming narratives, with storytelling that cannot be done in any other medium.

[Nephtys]

Explain to me how a movie is really that much different in narrative than a game that basically plays out the same way

...

The criticism fails due to lack of actually even saying anything, aside from 'Metroid has bad narrative'.

Your criticism of the criticism fails due to lack of reading comprehension?

It's really quite simple. In movies, and books, and plays, and any other type of creative outlet used to convey a story and only convey a story, you are presented with a completed narrative which cannot in any way be derailed or modified, and the artist has complete control over that narrative. In a game, however, you are given the illusion of being in control of the narrative as the main character. But the bulk of game developers don't actually do anything to sustain that illusion. They simply take the non-interactive plot from another medium - say, a story about a soldier shooting aliens - and squeeze it in between sections of gameplay mechanic. At best you might get a branching plotline once in a while, but overall, it doesn't really matter what you do in the game as long as you end up ticking a set of pre-defined boxes that lets you progress to the next cutscene.

What the article is arguing is that very few, if any, developers actually take advantage of gaming as an interactive medium by having a plot that follows your decision and not the one from a script writer in an office somewhere. Compare it to early TV shows that were basically radio programs with a camera pointed at the presenter; sure, a new bulletin that consisted of an image of a man reading the news highlights was technically TV, but it wasn't until the addition of graphics and visual reports that you could really say television came into its own. Likewise, playing a game where you fly a spaceship shooting alien blobs that once in a while cuts away to a story about spaceships shooting alien blobs is technically a gaming narrative, but there is very little interaction between the plot and what you do as a gamer.

And, again, that is not in itself a bad thing if that's what the developer is going for. If the point is just to have some sort of framework for the action on-screen then some cutscenes to tie together the levels are fine. But that still leaves a huge well of untapped potential for video games that are actually video gaming narratives, with storytelling that cannot be done in any other medium.

You mean the fact that the original article cited Metroid? A game with about as much story as Super Mario, Candy Land or Mousetrap? The emphasis of such a game is problem solving, not telling some interactive epic. The metaphor of turning pages over and over until you beat a level further emphasizes this strange and nonsensical argument.

Again, Wing Commander IV is every bit as communicative a narrative as any movie, and it's of all things, a Flight Simulator. Dozens of major branches exist based on a player's actions both in the cockpit and in choices during cutscenes, but all are tied together to a central storyline that progresses through the traditional phases of storytelling. Because I didn't fly good enough, Ensign Bill died, Crew Chief Corolis hates me, and the Captain is critical of my abilities. The story progresses that way, Ensign Bill isn't around in the future to stop a barfight between the main character and Biff, etc. How is that 'very little interaction between the plot and what you do'?

[Bounty]

How is that 'very little interaction between the plot and what you do'?

I think that's actually the sort of storytelling the article is trying to encourage. It's still very limited, but at least it's something.

[Sarevok]

Fuck off dickshit. Starglider's shit is TOTALLY IRRELEVANT unless you accept his bullshit assumptions (ie, that 'causal narrative' = 'giant open-world freeform dynamic plot universe'). This is not true. As I've repeatedly said - and you're too fucking stupid to read - the OP issues with linear narratives can be solved (and have been already by people smarter than you) using decent design and writing without magic AI procedural everything.

God damn it, is it too hard to read before tapping random keys like a monkey in hopes of producing a "witty" response ?

Freeform gameplay DOES NOT lend towards static narrative. The possibilities in a sandbox type gameworld are almost endless. Not even an entire team of writers can dream up all the possible interactions between characters or the chain of events that may occur. The only way to produce a sound story while keeping the freedom is to go for better character AI.

How you implement the details varies depending on the game. For instance a GTA type would require NPC enemies and allies to have actual goal driven AI. Right now everything they do is predefined. Nothing they or the player does in the game world is necessary within context of the game world. In this GTA example the player may be required to go blow up a munitions dump used by a rival gang. But is the rival gang really using said munitions dump ? Not at all. They are just magically spawning bots with infinite ammuniton cheats !

See the problem with relying on story telling alone ? This problem should be solved through better character AI. NPCs should have non cheating guns that actually require ammo in order to function. You would be ordered to go blow up the dump not by the writters but because the ingame allied gang leader feels that his rival gang would be less effective in combat if they lose much of their ammo. If you do succesfully destroy the ammo dump you actually get to see an affect ingame that is dynamically determined. Many of the enemy character AIs would now have to determine how to fight with less ammo then before. Maybe some would resort to melee weapons. While others put out contracts for more ammo. Which the player can fullfill. In the end the actions the player takes actuall has meaningful impact ingame.

See ? All these is generated ingame without forced storytelling. Storytelling works in a mission based game where events in one level is confined within the game level and has no impact on the story. But it is hard to do within the confines of the large game worlds modern games are trying to do while retaining the sense of suspension of disbelief.

[General Zod]

Freeform gameplay DOES NOT lend towards static narrative. The possibilities in a sandbox type gameworld are almost endless. Not even an entire team of writers can dream up all the possible interactions between characters or the chain of events that may occur. The only way to produce a sound story while keeping the freedom is to go for better character AI.

Or hire writers who have more experience than fanfiction.net?

See the problem with relying on story telling alone ? This problem should be solved through better character AI. NPCs should have non cheating guns that actually require ammo in order to function. You would be ordered to go blow up the dump not by the writters but because the ingame allied gang leader feels that his rival gang would be less effective in combat if they lose much of their ammo. If you do succesfully destroy the ammo dump you actually get to see an affect ingame that is dynamically determined. Many of the enemy character AIs would now have to determine how to fight with less ammo then before. Maybe some would resort to melee weapons. While others put out contracts for more ammo. Which the player can fullfill. In the end the actions the player takes actuall has meaningful impact ingame.

It sounds to me like you want resource micromanagement more than a game.

See ? All these is generated ingame without forced storytelling. Storytelling works in a mission based game where events in one level is confined within the game level and has no impact on the story. But it is hard to do within the confines of the large game worlds modern games are trying to do while retaining the sense of suspension of disbelief.

Which just means they need better quality writers and implementation, and need to work within the sandbox model instead of trying to shoehorn mission-style storytelling into a freeform game. The idea that more AI is absolutely essential is strange.

[Sarevok]

Or hire writers who have more experience than fanfiction.net?

Not good enough. Writters alone can not write enough branching events for all the possibilities in a game world. Say you are doing a RPG like KoToR. You want to kill Bastilla because you know she is going turn on you. But you can't because the writers have not thought of that possibility. You can only kill certain people at certain predetermined times in the plot. That is very bad game design. I expect a game to be a virtual world not an interactive storybook with a,b,c choices at end of each chapter.

It sounds to me like you want resource micromanagement more than a game.

How does what I propose translate into "silly resource micromanagement" ? It's quite obvious that 99 % of third or first person shooter enemies have cheating infinite ammo guns. And removing that silly cheating achieves two goals with one strike. It makes the AI play fairly. And opens up a possibility for worthwhile missions with actual in game impact.

Which just means they need better quality writers and implementation, and need to work within the sandbox model instead of trying to shoehorn mission-style storytelling into a freeform game. The idea that more AI is absolutely essential is strange.

Details on how you think that is going to work ?

[Samuel]

Say you are doing a RPG like KoToR. You want to kill Bastilla because you know she is going turn on you. But you can't because the writers have not thought of that possibility.

Which you know because you played the game before. That doesn't make any sense at all for your character to do. Alot of branching can be ignored because it requires a person to have out of character knowledge and presumably the individual you are playing does not have the ability to tap into that.

A better example would be slaughtering the Sith instructor in the Academy which would it in and make sense.

[General Zod]

Not good enough. Writters alone can not write enough branching events for all the possibilities in a game world. Say you are doing a RPG like KoToR. You want to kill Bastilla because you know she is going turn on you. But you can't because the writers have not thought of that possibility. You can only kill certain people at certain predetermined times in the plot. That is very bad game design. I expect a game to be a virtual world not an interactive storybook with a,b,c choices at end of each chapter.

Why the fuck do they need all the possibilities? You're going to be confined to the limitations of disc space no matter what, so they only need to do the most likely ones.

How does what I propose translate into "silly resource micromanagement" ?

You're focusing entirely too much on the enemy's supplies. Turns out you don't need uber-realism to make an entertaining game?

It's quite obvious that 99 % of third or first person shooter enemies have cheating infinite ammo guns. And removing that silly cheating achieves two goals with one strike. It makes the AI play fairly. And opens up a possibility for worthwhile missions with actual in game impact.

In other words, adjust the difficulty?

Details on how you think that is going to work ?

Give them the background of the world passively. Audio logs, journal entries, diaries that offer insights into the world in question are fantastic methods of giving the player information without force-feeding it and concentrating more effort on gameplay.

[Sarevok]

Why the fuck do they need all the possibilities? You're going to be confined to the limitations of disc space no matter what, so they only need to do the most likely ones.

That's quite foolish to say. The limitations of being confined by sheer number of possiblities is precisely the reason you create a system that can dynamically handle it on the fly. The other alternative is to restrict and handicap gameplay with SoD breaking elements like giving some named characters god mode until plot deems they will die. In order to forcibly make sure the player can not do anything you did not write in the story you are really breaking the gameplay.

You're focusing entirely too much on the enemy's supplies. Turns out you don't need uber-realism to make an entertaining game?

In what kind of demented world is turning off infinite ammo cheat for bad guys uber realism ? In a game with mission based gameplay enemies, allies and players alike can spawn with finite amount of ammo. Once they expend it they are pretty much boned or left with melee. That does not work with a "sandbox" style enviroment. Within half an hour of the game starting everyone would be winchester ammo and running around with crowbars and knives. You must have a decent resupply system inplace to make a believable world.

OF COURSE no one has done it before. But just because a shitty idea like giving computer controlled characters rocket launchers with infinite ammo (Far Crys Trigen monkeys are notable examples) does not impede sales, does not mean it is ultimately still a bad thing. Computer AI needs to fight fair instead of using lazy tricks like x ray vision and infinite ammo cheats.

In other words, adjust the difficulty?

How ?

Give them the background of the world passively. Audio logs, journal entries, diaries that offer insights into the world in question are fantastic methods of giving the player information without force-feeding it and concentrating more effort on gameplay.

That sets up the backstory of the game world. It does not help once the game is in motion and the behavior of the characters must be explained.

[Vendetta]

Why the fuck do they need all the possibilities? You're going to be confined to the limitations of disc space no matter what, so they only need to do the most likely ones.

The trouble is that no-one has ever gotten close to writing a game that branches sufficiently elegantly that the player doesn't notice it happening.

And the problem is not the lack of good writers, the problem is combinatorial explosion. Every branchpoint doubles or worse the number of possible outcomes later on, and each one needs to be written, so either the player choices end up being entirely cosmetic and with few to no consequences in the long term, or the branchpoints need to be sufficiently few and far between that they become obvious to the player.

If you are going to try and have a system where the player can affect the outcomes of the story, rather than, as with pretty much every single game ever, simply discovering the outcome of a story already written, you can't rely on prewritten branchpoints, because otherwise you'll have a development cycle that makes DNF look snappy.

[Stark]

There is plenty of scope for 'causal narrative' outside 'regular' story heavy games - as Vendetta says, the heavier the story (especially when it requires reams of text as in KotOR or BG etc) the harder it is to do. Abstract games can arguably have 'causal narrative' because it's easier to make maths respond to the player than have eighty million very slightly different conversation trees.

Again, 'can affect outcomes' doesn't necessarily mean 'outcomes sensitive to every single player action with include the entire gamut of foolhardy/irrelevant/off-topic/out-of-character actions'. The trick is to have the story respond to the player's actions in a meaningful way (rather than 'there are ten guys here now' or 'you died whoops') through available choices, and not some doomed attempt to allow unlimited freedom (which wouldn't make sense inside most games' 'defeat the wizard' style stories anyway). Whether or not games doing this have GOOD 'causal narrative' is irrelevant.

It's amusing that people persist in thinking about a game's 'story', as if there's only one, even when discussing flexible narratives.

[bobalot]

Proof by counter example.

Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn

QED

I add to that list, the masterpiece that is Planescape:Torment

End of argument.

[Stark]

Jesus fuck. Starglider might be a tunnel-vision pretentious git, but at least he knows what the fucking discussion is about. PS - it's not about 'list your favourite games' like every other goddamn thread in GnC turns into after a few minutes.

If you want to demonstrate how Planescape has a narrative that uses the computer medium to respond to the player's actions, go ahead.

[Dooey Jo]

It's pretty silly to think "ZOMG infinite options" will give you a good story, instead of no story. Much like how when you go grocery shopping, everyone around you live their own lives, and you have the option to do anything within your power. Is this some kind of great story? No, it's not a story at all, it's just you going grocery shopping. It has no narrative meaning. What you'd need is not super-AI for characters, but some kind of storyteller AI. One that understands when to ramp up the pacing, when to introduce turning points, how to do nice reveals, etc., and applies this to make narrative sense of the player's choices, and then present new options. And what does this give you in the end? Your typical role-playing session, but without your friends. Not necessarily anything better than a traditional "shoehorned" story (which really need not be shoehorned at all if you're competent enough to write it so that it complements the game play, like many adventure games did, for instance).

[salm]

You're focusing entirely too much on the enemy's supplies. Turns out you don't need uber-realism to make an entertaining game?

I think you´re misunderstanding him. The way i understand Saverok his point doesn´t have anything to do with ammo supply in specific. It has to do with the way NPCs will act and react to certain situations.
The point is to make the world open and dynamic (not geographically that´s allready happened but character and plotwise). This could be done by using really good AI and by giving each character specific interests, opinions and so on. Give the character a character.

One NPC could simply be interested in making money so the Game Designer tells the AI that it wants to make money. Everything else the AI has to figure out itself. The AI can get a job, or it can start robbing banks or start a Gang or anything else.
Other AIs will react to the first AIs actions. For example the Cop AIs might want to hunt him after robbing a bank. But not because the game designer told them to hunt bad guys. They´d hunt him because they know it´s their job to do so.

Now, this is a very generic scenario and letting single AIs chose their own profession might be a bit overblown for many games but the principle is the same as the more specific example Sarevok mentioned. AIs have different interests and try to get what they want without being programmed exactly how to do it.

Now, it´s obviously possible to create good games without such advanced AI. That´s not the question here. The question is, could advanced AI make it possible to create vastly improved gaming worlds and more adequat plots?

Personally i think it could precisely because of the examples mentioned above. However, this doesn´t mean that you should simply throw the player into a world without any kind of story or guidance. Even the possibilty of using advanced AI will still require a good storywriter to create a decent plot. I guess something like a game master AI from pen and paper RPGs is needed.

[bobalot]

Jesus fuck. Starglider might be a tunnel-vision pretentious git, but at least he knows what the fucking discussion is about. PS - it's not about 'list your favourite games' like every other goddamn thread in GnC turns into after a few minutes.

If you want to demonstrate how Planescape has a narrative that uses the computer medium to respond to the player's actions, go ahead.

It doesn't really. The story is just very good. You play one character with an intriguing history that unravels over the course of the game. I got genuinely interested in the characters back story even though functionally, it didn't really have any impact on the game. The overall all plot is a bit out of the ordinary (your character is trying to lose his "immortality"), but is well laid out. The story is better than quite a few fantasy novels I have read or crappy movies I have seen.

The article/post that the OP posted is basically saying that the narratives of games are pretty much meaningless compared to film and literature. It's true that a lot of games that aspire to have complex and intriguing stories turn out to be shitty, but that seems to be a problem of poor writing. I don't see a supported argument that proves video games are automatically a shitty method of telling a story.

[Bounty]

The article/post that the OP posted is basically saying that the narratives of games are pretty much meaningless compared to film and literature.

So, what article have you been reading?

[General Zod]

I think you´re misunderstanding him. The way i understand Saverok his point doesn´t have anything to do with ammo supply in specific. It has to do with the way NPCs will act and react to certain situations.
The point is to make the world open and dynamic (not geographically that´s allready happened but character and plotwise). This could be done by using really good AI and by giving each character specific interests, opinions and so on. Give the character a character.

One NPC could simply be interested in making money so the Game Designer tells the AI that it wants to make money. Everything else the AI has to figure out itself. The AI can get a job, or it can start robbing banks or start a Gang or anything else.
Other AIs will react to the first AIs actions. For example the Cop AIs might want to hunt him after robbing a bank. But not because the game designer told them to hunt bad guys. They´d hunt him because they know it´s their job to do so.

Now, this is a very generic scenario and letting single AIs chose their own profession might be a bit overblown for many games but the principle is the same as the more specific example Sarevok mentioned. AIs have different interests and try to get what they want without being programmed exactly how to do it.

Now, it´s obviously possible to create good games without such advanced AI. That´s not the question here. The question is, could advanced AI make it possible to create vastly improved gaming worlds and more adequat plots?

Personally i think it could precisely because of the examples mentioned above. However, this doesn´t mean that you should simply throw the player into a world without any kind of story or guidance. Even the possibilty of using advanced AI will still require a good storywriter to create a decent plot. I guess something like a game master AI from pen and paper RPGs is needed.

That sounds like The Sims: Grand Theft Auto more than any kind of game that would be worth playing. Seems to me that most players don't really care how supposedly advanced the AI is so long as it appears sufficiently random and makes for an interesting challenge.

[salm]

That sounds like The Sims: Grand Theft Auto more than any kind of game that would be worth playing. Seems to me that most players don't really care how supposedly advanced the AI is so long as it appears sufficiently random and makes for an interesting challenge.

The Sims: Grand Theft Auto. Sounds right, yes. I´ve never played the Sims, though and know it only from articles, reviews and trailers.

And i agree that the players don´t care how advanced the AI is as long as it appears sufficiently random. However, up until today i haven´t seen a single open world game in which the "randomnes" couldn´t be vastly improved. You can allways tell that the randomnes is simply some scripted events combined with lousy AI.

If you know good counter examples where this is the case (either by good AI or by good story telling) i´d be very interested.

Like said before, it´s not impossible to develop a good game without such advanced AI but advanced AI would open up the possibilty of creating this causal way of story telling the guy in the OP article mentions. If nothing else it would at least be a very interesting additional tool in game development.