World, Story, GamePlay
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Every game is made up of three elements The world, the story and gameplay. Diffrent games have diffrent levels detail and time devoted those three elements, but which do you as gamers find brings you most into a game and keeps you playing?
World:
The game world includes all that you can explore, discover, and use in the game. It also decides that amount that you customize the experince to your liking. The more detailed and complex the world and interactions it allows the more the choice and varity the player has in terms of building an indviduilzed experince.
Story:
The story line is the pre planed an events the play out throught the course of the game. The story can portray remarkable events, and deeply involed character interactions all towards to goal of allowing the player to connect to the game.
GamePlay:
Is the how the game is played and ways in which the player interacts with the world and story.
what keeps me playing is definitely the gameplay.
you know the story once you played through the game. play it another time and maybe you'll find some more/other aspects to it, but generally it will be the same.
the world is also an important part, but it's always
a) finite: sooner or later you've seen everything (or enough)
b) randomly generated: sooner or later you know the elements used to generate the world,item,npc,whatever
so for me the key is that the gameplay is interesting enough, so the game is still fun to play, even if you know the story and the world already.
sadly, i can't think of a game which holds up to this.
(feel free to enlighten me :)
you know the story once you played through the game. play it another time and maybe you'll find some more/other aspects to it, but generally it will be the same.
the world is also an important part, but it's always
a) finite: sooner or later you've seen everything (or enough)
b) randomly generated: sooner or later you know the elements used to generate the world,item,npc,whatever
so for me the key is that the gameplay is interesting enough, so the game is still fun to play, even if you know the story and the world already.
sadly, i can't think of a game which holds up to this.
(feel free to enlighten me :)
For me it's:
Gameplay
World
Story
In that order.
A very good, strong story might make me want to play through to the end of a game I might otherwise get bored with sooner, but it won't make me want to replay it all that often, in fact it tends to put me off. The games I play and replay the most have little or no story, or the story is purely optional.
Gameplay
World
Story
In that order.
A very good, strong story might make me want to play through to the end of a game I might otherwise get bored with sooner, but it won't make me want to replay it all that often, in fact it tends to put me off. The games I play and replay the most have little or no story, or the story is purely optional.
All these elements get old afterawhile, but..
A good story gives me that warm fuzzy feeling, which i enjoy. Depending on how its done, I might replay the game to try and piece together what happens in the story, or to discover all the elements. Few games i've ever played have really taken advantage of this approach of forcing the player to discover the plot and story through gameplay, rather than shoving it down his throat with dialogue and ingame cinematics.
Worlds are beautiful, and i especially love exploring new, and diverse area's, especially those i'm not supposed to get to. Most games make secret area's rather small, more of a bonus really. But creating large area's to explore and open up new options, while still being considered a secret and not required to completing the game would be fun.
Gameplay is definitly a must, since games with poor gameplay can't live up to their potential. The lasting appeal of gameplay can be seen in games like coffee-break arcade shooters, which keep people comming back with their Xen-like enjoyment.
Bottom line is, i feel that games should be more shy when it comes to their elements, to make the player work in order to discover the games inner workings, rather than showing off everything on the first run (or almost everything, hidden characters and a few new items just don't do it for me).
A good story gives me that warm fuzzy feeling, which i enjoy. Depending on how its done, I might replay the game to try and piece together what happens in the story, or to discover all the elements. Few games i've ever played have really taken advantage of this approach of forcing the player to discover the plot and story through gameplay, rather than shoving it down his throat with dialogue and ingame cinematics.
Worlds are beautiful, and i especially love exploring new, and diverse area's, especially those i'm not supposed to get to. Most games make secret area's rather small, more of a bonus really. But creating large area's to explore and open up new options, while still being considered a secret and not required to completing the game would be fun.
Gameplay is definitly a must, since games with poor gameplay can't live up to their potential. The lasting appeal of gameplay can be seen in games like coffee-break arcade shooters, which keep people comming back with their Xen-like enjoyment.
Bottom line is, i feel that games should be more shy when it comes to their elements, to make the player work in order to discover the games inner workings, rather than showing off everything on the first run (or almost everything, hidden characters and a few new items just don't do it for me).
I don't know that I really have a favorite. It seems to be different for every game.
In most RPG's, it's actully the world that gets me, because the stories are rarely original. (I'm basing this off old NES/SNES RPG's.) Of course there's places where the world and story go hand in hand, such as the feuding villages in I think it was the 7th Saga.
And yet, I liked Lufia 2 mainly because of gameplay elements. The story was pretty blah (go to new town, find out problem, go to nearby dungeon to kill bad guy and/or get item, go to next town, etc) other than the marriage thing and how a year passed in a cut scene, which was unusual. But I liked how you could see monsters in the dungeons, rather than having random fights. The IP system was pretty neat too, and that game had some really fiendish puzzles.
I didn't like FF7 because it didn't have *enough* gameplay though. Most of the game was like a movie. If I wanted to watch a movie, I'd watch a movie. I didn't even play very much of it because of this. I did think the materia was neat though.
In Tak (Gamecube) I think all the elements combined to make a really great game. The world was varied, and you could travel freely through most parts of it. No linear "finish level 1, go to level 2" stuff. The story was great because it was f***ing hilarious ("Lok, quit licking my foot!"), and the cutscenes didn't take over the game. The gameplay was interesting, because there were a variety of actions and difficulties, and most of the time when you died it brought you back fairly close to where you died so you didn't have to go through all that crap over again.
I guess, in view of all this, that it's not really the elements themselves that hook me. It's how they all interact. If they all combine in such a way that the game seems "whole", then chances are I'll like the game even if one element or another is pretty weak.
In most RPG's, it's actully the world that gets me, because the stories are rarely original. (I'm basing this off old NES/SNES RPG's.) Of course there's places where the world and story go hand in hand, such as the feuding villages in I think it was the 7th Saga.
And yet, I liked Lufia 2 mainly because of gameplay elements. The story was pretty blah (go to new town, find out problem, go to nearby dungeon to kill bad guy and/or get item, go to next town, etc) other than the marriage thing and how a year passed in a cut scene, which was unusual. But I liked how you could see monsters in the dungeons, rather than having random fights. The IP system was pretty neat too, and that game had some really fiendish puzzles.
I didn't like FF7 because it didn't have *enough* gameplay though. Most of the game was like a movie. If I wanted to watch a movie, I'd watch a movie. I didn't even play very much of it because of this. I did think the materia was neat though.
In Tak (Gamecube) I think all the elements combined to make a really great game. The world was varied, and you could travel freely through most parts of it. No linear "finish level 1, go to level 2" stuff. The story was great because it was f***ing hilarious ("Lok, quit licking my foot!"), and the cutscenes didn't take over the game. The gameplay was interesting, because there were a variety of actions and difficulties, and most of the time when you died it brought you back fairly close to where you died so you didn't have to go through all that crap over again.
I guess, in view of all this, that it's not really the elements themselves that hook me. It's how they all interact. If they all combine in such a way that the game seems "whole", then chances are I'll like the game even if one element or another is pretty weak.
Quote:Original post by onyxflame
I didn't like FF7 because it didn't have *enough* gameplay though. Most of the game was like a movie. If I wanted to watch a movie, I'd watch a movie. I didn't even play very much of it because of this. I did think the materia was neat though.
That's funny - I thought that FF7 (like the other ff games) had so absurdly much monster battling that the story almost got lost in between dungeons. And I played it through twice. But the materia was indeed neat.
I'm not sure that you can neatly divide a game up into world, story and gameplay - I would consider the expository worldbuilding to be story and the world customizability to be gameplay. But however you divide it up, story is what decides whether I'll buy the game or not, although bad gameplay can make me decide not to play a game I have already bought. Note that this only applies to RPGS, adventure games, and other story-based game genres.
Quote:Original post by Sandman
For me it's:
Gameplay
World
Story
In that order.
A very good, strong story might make me want to play through to the end of a game I might otherwise get bored with sooner, but it won't make me want to replay it all that often, in fact it tends to put me off. The games I play and replay the most have little or no story, or the story is purely optional.
Precisely the way I feel, especially on replayability. I really dislike it when a game offers you an enjoyable form of gameplay that you want to keep enjoying and then takes it away on the next mission or plot interval (light cycle racing in Tron is a perfect example-- loved it, wanted to do more, but all I have are saved games if that's the case).
I can't wait until the gameplay actually merges with the story to such a complete level that you have trouble distinguishing the two. Then at least one "versus" debate will be over. [smile]
I would want to buy a game that by my standards(that means how much I liked that specific part:p )..
Scored +85 in Gameplay.
Scored +93 in Story.
Scored +97 in World. After a while this just gets boring.
Of course the game needs at the very minimum 20 hours of pure gameplay for any of these to work.
Also, to Wavinarot, I don't think there will get to a point where you can tell which is which. But I beleive we can reach a point where gameplay makes the story and story makes gameplay, and there will be games where one won't work without the other ^_^
Scored +85 in Gameplay.
Scored +93 in Story.
Scored +97 in World. After a while this just gets boring.
Of course the game needs at the very minimum 20 hours of pure gameplay for any of these to work.
Also, to Wavinarot, I don't think there will get to a point where you can tell which is which. But I beleive we can reach a point where gameplay makes the story and story makes gameplay, and there will be games where one won't work without the other ^_^
There are games that have no world or no story (like Solitaire). But of the games that have the three elements you mentioned, story means the most to me, followed by gameplay and then the world. And the three have to work together - non of this garbage where you get a chunk of the story, play a little gameplay for a while, then see another chunk of story, do some random exploring because you have nothing else to do...
For me, it has to be gameplay=world>story
Gameplay is no fun if the world is butt ugly. You just won't want to sit there and have holes of crap burnt into your eyes. On the other hand, what good is a huge beautiful world when there is nothing interesting to do? Imagine an MMORPG with the best graphics you could possibly imagine..but no one else to play with. In my opinion, you can't have one without the other. At least..not in a game I'd ever want to play.
Story comes last because..well though they can often interest me and make me want to keep going...I think back to how many amazing games have boring/uninspired/no story. Most games in the zelda series, most games in the metroid series, all mario games, all quake games...those are some of my favorite games, and none of them have particularly amazing stories.
To me, the perfect mix of all three elements has to be metroid prime (gamecube). While its story is no comparison to the best of RPG's, it can still hold its own. And the gameplay as well as the world is second to none.
Gameplay is no fun if the world is butt ugly. You just won't want to sit there and have holes of crap burnt into your eyes. On the other hand, what good is a huge beautiful world when there is nothing interesting to do? Imagine an MMORPG with the best graphics you could possibly imagine..but no one else to play with. In my opinion, you can't have one without the other. At least..not in a game I'd ever want to play.
Story comes last because..well though they can often interest me and make me want to keep going...I think back to how many amazing games have boring/uninspired/no story. Most games in the zelda series, most games in the metroid series, all mario games, all quake games...those are some of my favorite games, and none of them have particularly amazing stories.
To me, the perfect mix of all three elements has to be metroid prime (gamecube). While its story is no comparison to the best of RPG's, it can still hold its own. And the gameplay as well as the world is second to none.
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