Ah, I remembered another: multiple-choice conversations with too obvious "good" or "bad/impolite" choices. I remember at least Unreal II (for what little it had) and Oblivion having those.

Quote:Original post by Deleter
Meaning you want dynamic or an absence of story?

It means I want an interactive or emergent story.

Quote:Original post by AgentC
Ah, I remembered another: multiple-choice conversations with too obvious "good" or "bad/impolite" choices. I remember at least Unreal II (for what little it had) and Oblivion having those.

Jade Empire featured this as well. That said, I was okay with it in Jade Empire except for my main complaint about the whole game:

Why do the 'evil' or 'dark' paths seem to be about being an asshole to people? Generally, the closed fist, dark side, evil paths should be about gaining power without regards to the means. Not just being a jerk. And for crying out loud, if you do have jerkish dialogue options, the person you're talking to probably shouldn't still ask for you to save their infant child from the clutches of a rogue sea dragon. Or whatever.

Quote:Original post by Yotan
And when I'm into it, characters that never dies for that mather. No mather witch game I think of, I cant remeber how many times I have restored people from death.

Put it simple, let bosses and characters die. Make a game over instead when one of your characters dont make it, or just make it so the story continue without that character.

Oh yes, it's the consistency regarding health & dying that is often violated. It's not always solely a writing issue, but also that of toying with the game ruleset in unexpected and disappointing ways. Depending on the rules of the game, you may have limited success in creating believable drama out of people getting hurt & dying, so you just have to find alternative ways, or keep the important people out of harm's way long enough so that the same rules may apply the whole time.

Warning: spoiler for R6:Vegas

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After establishing firmly that you can revive your mates with an adrenaline shot (or whatever) even if a grenade just went off right next to them, having one of them die scriptedly because of an injury that seems quite minor in comparision is sort of "Meh, we got to have one of these moments, even if it really isn't effective"

My thoughts:

* I feel too that life & death is all messed. Just look at Mortal Kombat. Two mortals defeats a god (raiden), Johny Cage revived, Liu Kang reappeared as a living dead, Shinnok is always threatening our world, the Dragon King revived (although, this is an exception since the very start the legend stated that he would return) Noob Saibot seems to be old sub zero after death, Kung Lao revived, and there are many many others...
I didn't play MK since MK 4, but I know the following stories. And find them boring. Why? becuase it was MORTAL kombat, a tournament where humans were able to protect earth's invasion. But now everyone invades everything, the battle between the same good and evil ones is endless (since death is not a problem) so it's basically all the same.

* A good game story will make you think, when you're reaching it's end, on everything you've made so far to reach this very end. Like when you worked a lot in a job to deserve vacations. That happened to me with Grim Fandango & FF VII

* Story problems: See FF VIII; the last boss (from the future) passed her power's to a sorceress from the past, but this sorceress is in our present possesed by the last boss. That's impossible, since the possesed one should be more powerfull than the evil one, because she had "her power" + "last boss' powers" Many things like this (FF VIII has a lot of them) appear when your story involves time travelling, or you forget about past characters.

For example (this is a TV show, not a game, but shows my point) in Smallville, Lex Luthor had to clean his blood each 72hs for the rest of his life because of a poison. It's been 2 seasons since then, and I've never heard of that problem again...

Dark Sylinc

Joe Campbell's The Hero's Journey