I don't know how I can say that in a nice manner, good story goes hand in hand with good story telling and this is via mechanics in this medium. You can't have one without the other.

You are absolutely correct, at least in my opinion, which is why I am here.

Our story is what we are really trying to tell. Some games want to let people build cities, some just want you to run around aimlessly and shoot things. Both of those types of games in their own right may not have any sort of story whatsoever. This is why we absolutely do realize that the core base we need to reach are people that just enjoy playing a game, not watching a movie. The story will be very rich and the dialog will be heavy, but how the players experiences it is currently under development.

I had originally come here to ask what mechanics you would want to see in a game that is rich with story and dialog(not text); stuff that you think would make the game "fun" to play.

Also, thanks for the tip about dissecting games. I knew it was probably going to throw some people off a bit with those references, but there were just some "general" ideas from each of the games that I wanted to relate to.

I think that going around asking a developers forum what type of game people would like to see is a recipe for disaster. Everyone has a different answer (for example, I'm perfectly fine with a linear experience as I rarely ever really play games more than once). In fact of the few games that I've replayed in the past ten years, Metal Gear Solid 4 (a linear game) was one of them. Mainly because the experience was excellent (deep story that took multiple play throughs to grasp a lot of the subtleties to it, and a different gameplay experience from every other action game).

To me non-linear games are rarely done very well. Having a core story in a non-linear game is also pretty common, although certain people have funny personalities (myself included) that hate it when you can't do everything possible before advancing the story. This type of preference in the market is why you really need to first have a strong vision for the product, present THAT vision, and then iterate on that after feedback or market research. I think by gathering feedback too early you end up with a little bit of what everyone wants, and a lot of what no one wants.

Thank you for your feedback. I will definitely be coming back to the forums at a later time in development to get feedback on systems we already have implemented in the game. I was mainly here to spark up a conversation about the mechanics people enjoy in story rich games and to get an overall sense of what is fun for the majority. I realize we will not be able to please everyone with out game, but we would still like to make it great for a majority of folks.

Your little rant about what you liked about MGS4 compared to other games was specifically the kind of feedback I was looking for. Even by you just saying what you liked about 1 particular game helps me envision the things you thought were memorable about it, and that helps.