keemt Posted December 7, 2007 Share Posted December 7, 2007 Quest Request Thread/Discussionhopefully a great resource to modders from the rpg-modding/playing community ================================= Hey fellow Oblivion lovers, to make sure that quests have exciting stories with depth to them, I thought we'd have to discuss what makes a story deep and what kinds of stories we like. To make this a resource for story STYLE and substance, I will do a bunch of things that we all should do, in order to find agreements on what's good for stories. ================================= So, what kind of stories do you like? What makes a story deep to you? What rpgs, mods, movies do you like and why? My quickest explanation would be that a story is deep if it says something about society, humanity, or the meaning of life (such as stories of destiny/fate). What is your view? I will elaborate after I answer my other questions. ------------------------------------------------------------ My Fav rpgs: FF6, Morrowind, some of FF4&7, FFTactics, Deus Ex, some of Baldur's, some of Diablo I My Fav mods: Illuminated Order for Morrowind comes to mind My Fav movies: Fight Club, Clockwork Orange, Vampire Hunter D (The original, not the teen-trash-novel sequel), Blade Runner, Fist of the Northstar (Original 1985-ish orion version, there's like 6 versions now but this one's too good) Goodfellas, Trainspotting, MementoMy Fav Stories of all Time: A Clockwork Orange, FF6, Vampire Hunter D 1, Shakespeare, Fight Club, Morrowind, FFT, Battle Angel Alita (aka Gunnm, the only manga series I've ever read, but the original series is the best story I've ever seen imho and now hollywood gave it a huge budget for a live-action remake that will probably never come out) and the idea of Casshan NOT Casshern (which compromised the great idea for nice action) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Oblivion Mod Requests: Castlevania would be easy to make a better story for it, Vampire Hunter D would be easy and already has a script, FFTactics would be easy but long to convert (condense it?), Battle Angel Alita would be awesome and easily convertible but long (just change what's sci-fi to fantasy and it'd be cake) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ My views on story: Great stories to me have to have some action/romance that is enjoyable, but really needs ideas and philosophy underpinning the events so it's not just a b-movie. This is why even The 300 is a watchable movie, or Morrowind was a fun game. 300 was 90% hack n' slash, but did create a story of freedom vs. slavery and the coming of a new age of man, instead of just plain ol' good guy vs bad guy. What I loved about certain stories: Morrowind was about destiny and finding the truth of history and either fighting it or joining it. FF6 was about the corruption of an empire gone mad, and becoming even more insane and powerful. Tactics was pretty much the same but with the church and demons mixed in. Clockwork Orange was about destroying humanity in vain attempts to cure society, what an old mistake! Blade Runner was about being a living thing and the need to protect your life as sacred even if it means destroying your creator. Vampire Hunter D is a pimp who won't let his bloodline dictate his morality, and story 1 in particular is very well crafted because every character has a certain position/argument about power in society (every character contributes to the argument, which amazes me). Battle Angel Alita is about what really makes people human and saving them from destroying themselves forever (so so cool...) Critiques on Oblivion stories: I just played "Tears of the Fiend" and thought it was pretty and descriptive, but shallow in comparison to the likes of great stories. It had great plot devices, but without a great plot. Before you hate me for saying this, consider what awesome stories you love. Personally, I started loving RPGs with FF6 and got really into stories from that point on. Well, now we have toolkits to make our own quests and they can look as good as paintings for Magic the Gathering (the good ones, of course)!!!!Btw people that complain about voice acting annoy me imho, because quests aren't about that to me. Am I screwed up or something?------------------------------------------------------ Like I said before, post what you can about what you love about quests/rpgs/stories and we'll all be helped Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vagrant0 Posted December 7, 2007 Share Posted December 7, 2007 The issue is time and mechanics. Just having a good story in mind doesn't mean anything if it can't be implemented ingame. As Oblivion is actually a bit more restricted, this makes a modders job harder to determine what is and is not possible. If it is possible, is it doable within a reasonable time frame, or with available skills. The reason why alot of large, complicated mods fail is that they take too long to keep the team interested and engaged in the project. No matter how good or doable the mod idea is, if there aren't people who can keep interested in working on it, it'll never happen. Having a project with complicated scripts, multiple branches, only makes this harder. As most mod teams only have 1-2 people around who can do any scripting, all work tends to halt when they get to some sort of roadblock. Sometimes, even when it seems doable, the scripting language will just not allow it in a way that works well. The other possible issue is voices. While mods can get away with just inserting silence, lack of voices can still lead to a minimilization of dialogue. People want to minimize that which doesn't fit with the rest of the game. Most people aren't good writers, when they're trying to squeeze as much information as they can into the text, they tend to become even less. There is an element missing from written text, and that can be enough to scrap a quest in its early stages. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keemt Posted December 7, 2007 Author Share Posted December 7, 2007 Yeah I agree on both points, multiple quest paths are very cool but def take too much time to create. Thanks for the heads-up about my signature, but I'm still dyin' to know what your guys' favorite stories are!!! And do you agree with my definition of what makes a story "deep"? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malchik Posted December 8, 2007 Share Posted December 8, 2007 I'm not sure that we can look for a communal agreement on this one. One thing that makes life the universe and everything so involving is the complexity and variety. It is good IMO that we don't all like the same things. The world would be so dull if we did. To me Oblivion is not a role play game. Nowhere does a choice you make have any impact on game play. If you want to be a wizard, fine. But you can still become archmage without any magic skills so what what makes you special? Vagrant suggests alternatives are complicated and that is true if you are talking of multiple quest lines but there are far simpler solutions. For example, if you join the Mages Guild you need specific skills and cannot join the Dark Brotherhood. Neither of those is hard to implement. Part of the problem is that whereas Morrowind plus expansions had 542 quests, Oblivion plus expansions has only about 220. In the former they could afford the luxury of making about 100 unplayable depending on choice (and probably could have gone further) it isn't so easy with Oblivion. 442 playable quests is still twice what Ob offers. It means restrictions make the game seem very short. Another problem is that with the exception of 'joining the mages guild' the quests are linear. So instead of seeming like multiple quests, many appear as multiple parts of a 'secondary main' quest. Whilst in theory it shouldn't make a difference, in fact it does, because mentally you feel that it is one quest. Another simple way to make the game more of an RPG would be to put in quests that have consequences if you choose to do them or not. For example you are asked to kill off some goblins but you say 'no I'm too busy'. The result is that the person who asked you dies and you get penalised. Dead easy to implement. (Killing the goblins could penalise you somewhere else if the game were so designed. Again, this is not difficult to do.) So, Oblivion is an interesting Hack and Shash game with an attempt to underpin it with some cultural issues but does not have the depth to be fully immersive. It's not the best game I have played but if it doesn't try to pretend to be an RPG it isn't so bad. As an RPG it lacks too much. Mods can help in some things of course but what,to me,makes a really interesting RPG is the fact that what you choose will limit your flexibility. That has been present in many games in the past with greater or lesser success. It isn't impossible. It wouldn't have been impossible for Ob. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keemt Posted December 8, 2007 Author Share Posted December 8, 2007 The official Oblivion quests are disappointingly simple but that's why there's mods, so there's plenty of quests available. It is good that we all like different things but all that goes without saying! The point is what do you like? I agree with you on why Oblivion sucks, but if it's not so immersive, then what is? What game gives you those consequences you were talking up? What stories had an impact on how you thought about life? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malchik Posted December 8, 2007 Share Posted December 8, 2007 I can't think of any game that did but books - Douglas Adams, Lewis Carroll, Philip Pullman - any book where the subtext is multi-layered I suppose. It made me realise that 1) everyone has hidden depths and an element that is not boring if you can find it 2) we all play to our own agendas which we sometimes do not even know ourselves 3) that it is far too easy to mistake someone else's motives. It has hardly made me infallible but I hope it has made me open minded. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keemt Posted December 11, 2007 Author Share Posted December 11, 2007 Dude I can completely see how what you mean with Douglas Adams and 1), he does that stuff great. Also, I think 2) is a great point that makes stories really true to life, but I'd say 3) just goes without saying and, for some reason, it doesn't hit a chord for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Abramul Posted December 11, 2007 Share Posted December 11, 2007 Moral ambiguity can be a good ingredient... In Morrowind, you're defeating someone whose deepest desire is to drive out the foreign occupiers from his homeland, and while you're at it, removing the power of three mortals who stole godhood to protect their people. In Oblivion, on the other hand, you're facing a typical "demons from hell are invading!" scenario. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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