[JCDNWarrior]

I think the problem here is that people perceive that they have no impact on a game during cutscenes and dialog, among other storyline elements, and thus only see them as fluff or unneccesary information. As such, I think it has to do with the linearity of most games, that causes such people to just skip to the 'good stuff'. A well made game, as Battuta points out, would generally cause people to be so interested in the storyline and to feel they have an important impact on the story and the presentation and outcome of cutscenes that they wouldn't complain.

Having played Final Fantasy 13 and 13-2 recently I must say that, in my opinion, those games handle the story and gameplay elements really well together, yet there's still much more that could be done to blend the two in, such as unique dialog during a battle based on what or who you're fighting, as well as contain a lot more dialog where your dialog choices actually matter and change the outcomes of events, the opinions of the characters about you and the amount of help they'll render to you.

When people complain about wanting to skip either combat or cutscenes is when the synergy between the two is (perceived to be) unbalanced. Notwithstanding the important adage of 'you cannot make everyone happy' that's something that should always be investigated and improved upon.

[TrashMan]

Having played Final Fantasy 13 and 13-2 recently I must say that, in my opinion, those games handle the story and gameplay elements really well together,

Final Fantasy 13 and 13-2

 

You have some kind of self-torture fetish?

[JCDNWarrior]

Don't worry, not right after eachother, and I take it slow. The grind in RPGs has always been annoying but I survived games with worse grinds before so I've got some natural toleration for it. I'm talking about it's story elements, especially moments where game and cutscene meets in the middle, as well as the fluid transitions between. Those are great elements in my opinion, alongside the rest of the things I've mentioned earlier.

[Nuke]

frankly i dont see what the problem is. if people want to spent $60 to watch what equates to a b grade movie, and skip interactive elements, its ok with me, but rest assured its no game il get caught playing. im sure the game companies wont mind the hordes of dumbass gamers who actually want this feature handing over their money. most of the stuff major game studios are putting out these days is garbage. independent studios are the only ones coming out with stuff thats even remotely playable. i have a hard time blaming the gamers though. recent years i have seen a lot of anti-consumerism policies come out of game studios, and a lot of things forced on gamers that would have been unthinkable in the 90s, and ive seen a lot of gamers just bend over and take it. any personal attacks against certain employees of certain game studios are purely the result of misdirected rage. but i do agree that the typical gamer has devolved. the immaturity of online gamers is one thing that has gotten much worse in the last decade.

[TrashMan]

Don't worry, not right after eachother, and I take it slow. The grind in RPGs has always been annoying but I survived games with worse grinds before so I've got some natural toleration for it. I'm talking about it's story elements, especially moments where game and cutscene meets in the middle, as well as the fluid transitions between. Those are great elements in my opinion, alongside the rest of the things I've mentioned earlier.

Lolwut?

[TrashMan]

frankly i dont see what the problem is. if people want to spent $60 to watch what equates to a b grade movie, and skip interactive elements, its ok with me, but rest assured its no game il get caught playing.

How are dialgue choices and interrupts "non-interactive"?

[MatthTheGeek]

That, plus the real problem is RE-playability here. So we're hardly talking about "just" a movie here.

[FireSpawn]

Lack of sufficient amounts of Fang's breasts makes FFXIII a no-go for me.

[TwentyPercentCooler]

frankly i dont see what the problem is. if people want to spent $60 to watch what equates to a b grade movie, and skip interactive elements, its ok with me, but rest assured its no game il get caught playing. im sure the game companies wont mind the hordes of dumbass gamers who actually want this feature handing over their money. most of the stuff major game studios are putting out these days is garbage. independent studios are the only ones coming out with stuff thats even remotely playable. i have a hard time blaming the gamers though. recent years i have seen a lot of anti-consumerism policies come out of game studios, and a lot of things forced on gamers that would have been unthinkable in the 90s, and ive seen a lot of gamers just bend over and take it. any personal attacks against certain employees of certain game studios are purely the result of misdirected rage. but i do agree that the typical gamer has devolved. the immaturity of online gamers is one thing that has gotten much worse in the last decade.

At risk of sounding incredibly elitist, I do believe it was the market penetration of consoles that completely ruined the face of gaming. It started the vicious cycle of gaming companies making nothing but crap and idiots paying for said crap without too much complaint. At least when it comes to gaming, greed is NOT good, so *&^% you, Gordon Gekko. The indie studios are our only hope for any kind of innovation. Fortunately for us, thanks to increasing computing power and automation, and the sort of graphics "ceiling" (where effort to improve the visuals has diminishing returns), I think we'll start to see more indie titles that can give these AAA blowhards a run for their money visually while still being awesome. And, of course, we'll always have the types of games where the visuals don't matter as much as the content. Minecraft, anyone?

A bit more OT: after learning about the day 1 DLC, and still with a bad taste in my mouth from the obvious beta stage release of TOR (don't get me wrong, I feel like I got my money's worth out of the original purchase because I really enjoyed the class stories, but I'm not paying a sub fee to test their broken game engine), BioWare gets nothing more from me.

[Nuke]

frankly i dont see what the problem is. if people want to spent $60 to watch what equates to a b grade movie, and skip interactive elements, its ok with me, but rest assured its no game il get caught playing.

How are dialgue choices and interrupts "non-interactive"?

picking the words your characters say != gameplay in my book. of course im an example of an old skool action gamer, rpgs and story oriented games have never really appealed to me. so any kind of thing in a game that results in me rapid pressing the escape key is "non interactive" as far as im concerned. this really falls under matters of preference.

the point i was trying to make was that you should buy games with features youre looking for. just because i find interactive stories dry and uninteresting, doesn't mean there arent those that will enjoy it. and im sure there are people out there who think the same of games where you just shoot things. game studios want to apply the barnum effect to get more sales, by all means. but if that causes the game to diverge far enough from the game play im looking for, im just not gonna buy it. genres exist for a reason.

[Dragon]

TBH, skipping combat seems illogical to me, because it's an interactive part of the game (thus setting it apart from a movie or a Visual Novel). Cutscenes are not, and it's understandable that one could want to skip them, especially if they're, say, replaying the game and already know the story. Interactive cutscenes (like in Wing Commander from III on) were not skippable in any game I played, though parts of them might be, especially if your choice has a big effect on the game (like getting you killed if you answer wrong), thus making it possible that you might want to reload a save from before the cutscene.

It's a good idea (and quite frequently used) to make it possible to replay cutscenes outside the game, and it should be easy (with a cheat code, for example) to make them all available from the start. Then, you essentially get a "skip combat" button. Of course, this approach fails when the game has interactive cutscenes.

[Spoon]

Interactive cutscenes (like in Wing Commander from III on) were not skippable in any game I played, though parts of them might be

"cept of course for the fact that you are wrong and you can skip the cutscenes in WC3&4.

[swashmebuckle]

Stories in games are like lyrics in music.  If some people just wanna read the words and think about what a genius that Oasis guy is, good for them, but I will still cringe inside because lyrics in isolation are just crappy poetry.  Crappy terrible awful poetry that gets celebrated when there's a whole world of great stuff in both fields that goes unnoticed because maybeeeeeeeeeeeeee you're gonna be the one that saves meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, and after aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall you're my wonderwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaallllll
/

[Lester]

Stories in games are like lyrics in music.  If some people just wanna read the words and think about what a genius that Oasis guy is, good for them, but I will still cringe inside because lyrics in isolation are just crappy poetry.  Crappy terrible awful poetry that gets celebrated when there's a whole world of great stuff in both fields that goes unnoticed because maybeeeeeeeeeeeeee you're gonna be the one that saves meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, and after aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall you're my wonderwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaallllll
/

Sorry, but the diehard Oasis fan in me simply has to reply to this.

Noel Gallagher (the Oasis guy you're probably referring to) was never that good with lyrics because he's dyslexic and, well, an ineducated chav. Also, Wonderwall definitely isn't their best song both lyrics-wise and melody-wise, and I personally hate it because most people only know of Wonderwall and base their opinion on solely that song, which is unfair to say the least.

/offtopic rant

OT: While I don't personally think that skipping gameplay on the first playthrough makes sense, it's definitely useful when replaying. Of course, there are games that have repetetive combat that becomes boring after a while even on the first playthrough, like Sands of Time as mentioned in this thread.

[esarai]

Hmmm... I would say that I agree with the disjointed feel the few modern games I've played have.  ME2 falls particularly hard on this.  The universe is fantastic as f***, but really the only gameplay is 'shoot that stuff over there,' 'talk to <randomasshole>' and 'grind for awesome guns,' and all three elements are quite isolated from one another.  If you're gonna talk to someone, it turns into a cutscene.  If you're shooting someone, it's your standard FPS run-gun-cover malarky.  If you're grinding, you're in the Normandy, dragging a magic swirly disk all over some poor hapless planet.  It'd be awesome to have the Half Life no-cutscene ethos applied to ME2.  That way the we might not notice the (human) characters populate the uncanny valley to varying degrees, and you'd get to feel like a total badass for figuring an alternative strategy instead of having it spoon-fed to you.  I'm thinking about

Spoiler:

stabbing the Blue Suns mechanic with an arc welder

and

Spoiler:

Blowing up the Clan Weyrloc door guard with a fuel pipe.

[TrashMan]

Stories in games are like lyrics in music.

No, they are like stories...

[swashmebuckle]

Sorry, but the diehard Oasis fan in me simply has to reply to this.

Noel Gallagher (the Oasis guy you're probably referring to) was never that good with lyrics because he's dyslexic and, well, an ineducated chav. Also, Wonderwall definitely isn't their best song both lyrics-wise and melody-wise, and I personally hate it because most people only know of Wonderwall and base their opinion on solely that song, which is unfair to say the least.

Didn't mean any knock to his music or his band, it was just the first super successful song with really bad lyrics that came to mind.  Most of the music I love has bad or no lyrics.

Stories in games are like lyrics in music.

No, they are like stories...

To clarify, I find that stories in games are like lyrics in music in that they are sometimes noteworthy but often superfluous or nonexistent components which, if taken in isolation, typically do not hold up well because they have to be built around some sort of structure which is much more important to the success of the thing as a whole.

I just think it's revealing to see how badly people reacted to the writer's suggestion of the gameplay skip for these games that are obviously built "backwards" (narrative/backstory first, then trying to make it fun).  I mean yeah, the entitlement and rudeness are really pathetic, but its interesting to me how for them, in order for the experience to be authentic or whatever, they have to endure the trial of playing the game and persevering (never mind that the game has been designed to be beatable by anyone who might consider buying it).  Given my feelings on how well I think the non-gameplay portions of games would fare on their own, I get that--without the sense of being rewarded, I don't think that many of them would make it.  Anyway, people who get angry about things that don't actually effect them at all are bums, but the issue itself has made me think about how I assign value to products like these, so that's cool.

TL/DR- Don't take away my pain!

[Woolie Wool]

i get that it's optional and shouldn't affect anything by being there, but...

doesn't it seem pretty dumb to anyone else to make a game, and throw in a button to skip the game part?

But I think the whole idea of what a video game is deserves re-examination. The vast majority of games inevitably boil down to you using often lethal force to overcome an enemy who intends to use similar force on you. There's nothing wrong with that per se, we're all on a forum devoted to a game that at its heart is about blowing spaceships to pieces. But somehow around 1992 it was decided that video games must be about killing or some sanitized version thereof. The whole concept of video gaming needs to be re-evaluated, but a large sector of the target audience ("gamers") are openly against any sort of re-evaluation because the entire medium is hopelessly rotten and incestuous (see video game "journalism") and controlled by insiders both among the producers and consumers who loathe and distrust any sort of outsider (including demographic outsiders like women).

And in the end these idiots will probably buy the next BioWare game anyway. They will go on their forums and complain about how BioWare has betrayed them (again), and bull-rush the stores on the release day of the next BioWare game (again).

So **** them.

The indie studios are our only hope for any kind of innovation. Fortunately for us, thanks to increasing computing power and automation, and the sort of graphics "ceiling" (where effort to improve the visuals has diminishing returns), I think we'll start to see more indie titles that can give these AAA blowhards a run for their money visually while still being awesome. And, of course, we'll always have the types of games where the visuals don't matter as much as the content. Minecraft, anyone?

Not going to happen. Even if the target of AAA graphics stops moving, to get better asset fidelity you need to pour more resources and man-hours into making those assets. A typical game in 1980 was developed by some nerd in his house. A typical game in 1990 was developed by a handful of people in a tiny development studio on a budget of thousands. A typical game now is made by hundreds of people working in a massive corporate enterprise on a budget of tens of millions. Think of the absolute best of the FSU assets, the stuff that really makes jaws drop. Imagine having to make an entire game with that (or higher) as the minimum standard, not just models and textures but music, interface art, level design (FS benefits immensely from not having to build physical levels at the same detail as all the other models, since everything is set in space) voice acting, writing, absolutely everything, on a two-year deadline.  Hundreds of talented people, working full-time and you have to pay them (do you want to work 60 hours a week for free?). You have to write your own engine too, or license one for hundreds of thousands and then still need a small army of coders to customize it for your purposes. Then add publishing, marketing, production, overhead...

Without a huge development studio backed by a publisher that can throw $10 million or more into a project, you're not going to get that.

And then you have to QA the resulting product. Hundreds more people, hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars...

Trying to match AAA games' asset fidelity is not a realistic or desirable goal for indie developers.

[Mikes]

Stories in games are like lyrics in music.  If some people just wanna read the words and think about what a genius that Oasis guy is, good for them, but I will still cringe inside because lyrics in isolation are just crappy poetry.  Crappy terrible awful poetry that gets celebrated when there's a whole world of great stuff in both fields that goes unnoticed because maybeeeeeeeeeeeeee you're gonna be the one that saves meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, and after aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall you're my wonderwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaallllll
/

So what s your argument? That games shouldn t even try? That there is no potential in the medium? That s rubbish and you know it!

[Dragon]

Interactive cutscenes (like in Wing Commander from III on) were not skippable in any game I played, though parts of them might be

"cept of course for the fact that you are wrong and you can skip the cutscenes in WC3&4.

IIRC, you could skip to the point where you have to chose a dialogue option (that's what I had in mind saying "though parts of them might be"). I played WC3 and 4 a long time ago, so my memory might be a bit hazy.