Poll

What would you rather have in a game?

plot
39 (79.6%)
replayability
10 (20.4%)

Total Members Voted: 48

Author Topic: Replayability or plot?  (Read 6534 times)

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Offline redsniper

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Do any of the plot people have games they've replayed just for the plot, even when actually disliking the core gameplay? 
Well, neither plot nor open-ended replayability will save a game if it just sucks. :p
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Offline NGTM-1R

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Do any of the plot people have games they've replayed just for the plot, even when actually disliking the core gameplay? 

A couple. Not many. Consider that it would be rare to see very much of the plot when you dislike the core gameplay and it's obvious. The only one that immediately comes to mind is Homeworld 2. Doubtless there are more amidst the vast quantity of games I have floating around.

However you're missing the existence of the large "meh" quality gameplay and good plot category.
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Offline Ransom

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Plot.

Do any of the plot people have games they've replayed just for the plot, even when actually disliking the core gameplay?
A good number of the games I've replayed fall under this category. The MGS titles, for instance, I have far more fun watching the cutscenes than actually playing. But I think this is mainly just because I'm not much of a gamer.

  
Do any of the plot people have games they've replayed just for the plot, even when actually disliking the core gameplay? 

A couple. Not many. Consider that it would be rare to see very much of the plot when you dislike the core gameplay and it's obvious. The only one that immediately comes to mind is Homeworld 2. Doubtless there are more amidst the vast quantity of games I have floating around.

However you're missing the existence of the large "meh" quality gameplay and good plot category.

I'm aware of those games.  I was asking more out of curiousity, since I noticed one of the above posters listing RE4 but not RE1-3.

 
I actually replayed StarCraft and Brood Wars for the plot after I beat them.

And then I got text dumps off the Internet to reread all the dialogue  :D

 

Offline Nuke

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youl want to play a game with a good plot more than once. rpgs are too redundant dispite having some big environments. fpses are all the same, space/flight/mech sims are all dead (a shame they were my favs), rtses, still waiting on starcraft 2. infact im so bored with the modern array of games that i think im gonna take my 8800 into the back yard and burn it.
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Offline Agent_Koopa

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I don't like non-linear plots because I don't want to have to slog through hours of boring and previously played plot until I get to one point where I can get a slightly different ending. Tales of Symphonia had an awesome plot, but it just wasn't worth playing again to get the other ending.
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Offline Roanoke

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Gameplay.



If you want plot read a book  ;)

 

Offline Flipside

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Thing is about a plot, is that there has to be a 'showdown' and some kind of conclusion to it. Plots add a lot more depth to a game, but can also cripple it. I can only really think of two ways of dealing with that problem, the first is to do what X3, which was make the plot happen inside an 'active' universe, the second is to take the MMO route and provide continuous updates.

Must admit, Gameplay will always come first, good plot and no gameplay is far harder to play than good gameplay and no plot, after all, look at Tetris, Pac-Man, Warning Forever etc,

I suppose it would seem odd that I like RPGs having said that, but I suppose they fall into the 'X3' bracket, as in you have an active environment to play in, and the story takes place in it, but is not essential to that environment.

I will admit, however, that plot can make a game a lot better, but I think Replayability and simple 'fun-ness' will always be first for me :)

 

Offline Blaise Russel

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I'm interested in games as (becoming) an art form, with messages and meaning and actual story-telling depth, so it's plot for me.

Quote
Must admit, Gameplay will always come first, good plot and no gameplay is far harder to play than good gameplay and no plot, after all, look at Tetris, Pac-Man, Warning Forever etc,

What I'm waiting for is for the industry to finally integrate gameplay and story, so that there isn't this (ultimately unnecessary) divide being 'the game' and 'the fluff'. Games shouldn't be designed around having 'gaming bits' and 'story time' but should wrap them up and bundle them together so that the actual gameplay tells the story, which is far more effective than reading a block of text between episodes in Doom or whatever.

To pick a ridiculous example: Tetris as a metaphor for the futility and inevitable entropy of life that is nevertheless predicated on construction, creation and organisation. That kinda thing.

Quote
QFT.  I never finished the first chapter of Baldur's Gate because I got annoyed at how many side quests there were.

Baldur's Gate is linear.  :confused:  I can, however (I think) empathise with the feeling of being paralysed by freedom. The beginning of Fallout left me thinking "so what now?"

 

Offline Roanoke

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I think a poor story can be overcome (let's face it we've had enough practice at doing so) but poor gameplay will kill a game.

 

Offline Agent_Koopa

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What I'm waiting for is for the industry to finally integrate gameplay and story, so that there isn't this (ultimately unnecessary) divide being 'the game' and 'the fluff'. Games shouldn't be designed around having 'gaming bits' and 'story time' but should wrap them up and bundle them together so that the actual gameplay tells the story, which is far more effective than reading a block of text between episodes in Doom or whatever.

i.e. FreeSpace 2, hmm? For example, the Sathanas emerging from the wreckage of the Knossos, Bosch escaping past the Colossus, the first use of the ETAK device?

I understand what you mean. The problem is, in FreeSpace 2 at least, the player may not be facing the right direction during a relatively small event, and in other games it may otherwise be easy to miss, leaving the player unsatisfied. I'm all for plot/gameplay integration, but only if it's well pulled off.[/awkward phrasing]
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Offline Fineus

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What I'm waiting for is for the industry to finally integrate gameplay and story, so that there isn't this (ultimately unnecessary) divide being 'the game' and 'the fluff'.
While it depends on the genre, I daresay this is already being done in some ways. In Half Life 2 Episode 1, if you use the "commentary" function, you'll notice that the developers went to great lengths to draw the players attention to certain features in the game which told the story. So if you actively tried to avoid them it was possible to play through and not pick up much storyline, but for the most part it was put right infront of you for you to realise "hey, I'm playing the game and it's telling me the story".

 

Offline Blaise Russel

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i.e. FreeSpace 2, hmm? For example, the Sathanas emerging from the wreckage of the Knossos, Bosch escaping past the Colossus, the first use of the ETAK device?

What? No, that's not what I mean at all. That's almost exactly the same as the Doom text dumps, just with pictures and sounds.

(It's not much, but) what I mean is something like what happened during the last part of Prince of Persia: Warrior Within. Godsmack and metal thongs aside, I really appreciated the segment of the game where the Prince, as the Sandwraith, must travel through the Isle of Time in order to intercept his past self before he can screw up the past again and lock him into a timeline where he is doomed to die.

Throughout the game you've been travelling freely throughout the hub-based Fortress, going back and forth between the various towers, returning to places you've already been to pick up special powers and new upgrades and whatnot. Because it's hub based, getting from one place to the other is pretty quick and easy; as such, it should be no problem for the Sandwraith Prince to get to the Throne Room before his past self does.

Except that it's not that easy. As the Sandwraith, you're constantly forced into following a path that leads you away from the hub and away from the Throne Room. The Central Hall is inaccessible because the bridges aren't aligned; on your way back to try another route, the Dahaka, agent of fate and chief antagonist, pops up and throws you down a well; you reach the Sacrificial Altar, but you're stuck in the rafters with no way down to the main path; the Gatehouse, easily traversable in the present, is solidly barred in the past; you reach the Library, but the Dahaka shows up (again) and chases you into a series of mystic caves.

All the while, you're (re)encountering events you saw when you were playing as your past self in the first half of the game. Each and every time, events pass as they did before, coming a little bit closer to dooming your effort to change the past and your fate. 'Random' chance and happenstance seem to conspire to railroad you into fulfilling your fate - dying at the hands of the Dahaka.

Do you see what I'm talking about? Sure, simple level design tells me "you're going to all these new places because it's the last segment of the game and we need new content to excite you". However, this merges with a higher game design principle to become something more. The change from free, short-length, hub-based, (sort of) non-linear gaming in the first two-thirds/three-quarters of the game to the linear, circuitous track that you follow in the last segment really emphasises, in my view, the desperation of the Prince's fight against the inevitability of fate.

It's beyond just having Alyx or Breen in the game with you, talking and acting on screen... it's a meta-game consideration, where the very design of the game itself reinforces the message that the developers want to put forth. That's what makes games different from 'interactive movies' or what-have-you; that is where the potential of games to be even greater story-tellers than books or cinema lies. Now, Warrior Within doesn't take it far enough, or even very far at all, but it's still going places that I want to be.

 

Offline Agent_Koopa

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Do you see what I'm talking about? Sure, simple level design tells me "you're going to all these new places because it's the last segment of the game and we need new content to excite you". However, this merges with a higher game design principle to become something more. The change from free, short-length, hub-based, (sort of) non-linear gaming in the first two-thirds/three-quarters of the game to the linear, circuitous track that you follow in the last segment really emphasises, in my view, the desperation of the Prince's fight against the inevitability of fate.

It's beyond just having Alyx or Breen in the game with you, talking and acting on screen... it's a meta-game consideration, where the very design of the game itself reinforces the message that the developers want to put forth. That's what makes games different from 'interactive movies' or what-have-you; that is where the potential of games to be even greater story-tellers than books or cinema lies. Now, Warrior Within doesn't take it far enough, or even very far at all, but it's still going places that I want to be.

I guess. But the thing is, that final segment is linear and scripted. That's as close as an interactive movie as you can get. I assume that your summary is more powerful than the game could have been, and I have to admit, that's a pretty cool way to tie it all together, but not all games can have a story based around the illusion of free will, now can they? That topic is essentially the highest philosophical question of all.

But I see what you mean. Instead of seeing the Iceni escape, you want to try to stop the Iceni, and fail. You want Command to fruitlessly pretend to pursue it. You want to see more effects of Command's secret protection of the Iceni, like ships pulled from blockades actually participating in gameplay, or a ship receiving orders to leave and go help a Shivan conflict somewhere else, and seeing that happen. You want to see story have an effect on gameplay, not just hook missions together.
Interestingly enough, this signature is none of the following:
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A clever and self-referential comment on the nature of signatures themselves.

Hobo Queens are Crowned, but Hobo Kings are Found.

 

Offline CP5670

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:wtf:

I don't think he will notice your response. This thread is over six months old. :p

 
Wow, and I thought I was bad...


:necro:

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"Take my love. Take my land. Take me where I cannot stand. I don't care, I'm still free. You can't take the sky from me. Take me out to the black, tell them I ain't comin' back. Burn the land boil the sea, you can't take the sky from me. There's no place I can be since I've found Serenity. But you can't take the sky from me." - Ballad of Serenity

 

Offline Polpolion

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You are bad. You necro'd a four year old thread, this was like 7 months. Besides, this is a good thread, and it gave me another idea.

 
My excuse: the threads were named almost exactly the same. The other thread was just as good.

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"Take my love. Take my land. Take me where I cannot stand. I don't care, I'm still free. You can't take the sky from me. Take me out to the black, tell them I ain't comin' back. Burn the land boil the sea, you can't take the sky from me. There's no place I can be since I've found Serenity. But you can't take the sky from me." - Ballad of Serenity

 
Spartan used a Necro Beam... how ironic.  :lol:
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