Or the current storytellers need to try some new approaches at telling the story (as tricky as that is).
sorry, i didn’t mean to sound like i wanted games to be depressing (though i liked morrowind’s unique melancholy atmosphere). i more meant that i think that if good is to win, they should earn by having the characters actually have to do something other than “keep their chins up”. with most FFs it’s like: the good guys wins BECAUSE they’re the good guys; it could be a party made up of a teenage punk, a corn stalk, and a toy fire truck with real working lights and siren and they could be going up against the ultimate evil in the universe that thousands of other people have tried to defeat and failed miserably… but somehow they just know they’ll make it through… and sadly, they do.
i think i’d actually rather RPGs just did away with the ancient ultimate evil crap and try write real stories about the charaters. think about it, the most interesting movies never have anything to do with saving the world, why should games? i’d like to see a character driven RPG where the characters are going where they go because of some mundane (in comparison to saving the world) reason. it wouldn’t be a boring game, it wouldn’t be a peaceful game, it would be realistic.
i actually really disliked most of the characters especially tidus; i wanted to kill him everytime i saw him. the only characters i did like were auron and kimahri, i would have liked lulu but i kept thinking she sounded like a guy (i think her voice actor was the same voice actor as the one who did roan in grandia 2) it was a little off-setting o_O
Yeah saving the world is too much of a burden.
The thing is Megathedium, that without a higher purpose in the game things can be sort of akward (sp?).I mean getting a job,making money,buying stuff,chatting,travelling,killing some monster is A-ok for an RPG but if might feel like your running around in circles after sometime.
For a plot to be insteresting people can’t be all friendly and for that not to happen there has to me some mystery,lies and eventually violence in the middle…less the story starts getting boring.
Just imagine Shenmue 2 if you kept playing,meeting non plot-related NPC’s all the time doing stuff…
It might be fun but after some time it just feels that - mundane.
If you want mundane you can do it wihtout a videogame 
Still I undersand what you mean, often characters are given too much power and free will in videogames…
Ladies and gentlemen, I think we have the next big RPG idea right here!!! That’s just awesome
But, I know what you mean. Most RPGs solely consist of the Frodo/Sam portion of the Lord of the Rings journey. What most fantasy writers forget is that the reason why “normal” people like Frodo and Sam ultimately survived is because of the struggles of Aragorn and Co., and Gandalf. Without them, the quest would have failed.
But, instead, you get a ragtag group of people (which is fine in its own right) that really don’t have much in the way of skills to speak of, and they seem to be able to kill demons and gods. (In all fairness, though, in FFX, Yuna was special because of her ability to summon. Can’t speak for Tidus, though… he was such a ninny.)
i think you’re still thinking in typical RPG terms
how about a game where the characters are travelling the world just trying to survive? think of it in a panzer like setting, the characters keep moving and keep running through their adventure because there is a recent surge in pure-type creatures, most towns they stop in or come across are soon/ already have been overrun with creatures. they’re just trying to survive it, not save humanity, not destroy the creatures once and for all.
i think it would just be more plausible and i’d actually care about the characters if it seemed like their lives were in danger. in other RPGs it’s like “oh no! the healer died!” “oh that’s ok, just grab a phoenix down off of the pile over there, we got like 99 of them…”
i’ll still never understand how auron turned from a japanese samurai into an old white guy. musta been the sin…
Find me an ending for that game then
The problem, as Gehn has sort of pointed out, is that where would a game like that lead? How long should the player try to survive?
If the story didn’t revolve around saving the world, but rather, something more personal with merely the destruction-wrought world serving as a backdrop, it would be feasible (maybe you have to save a friend, find some sort of rare medicine to save a child from your village, etc.). But, the problem with the current structure of games is that people expect to play for 40+ hours with an RPG. Anything less is considered a “poor value.” After playing through a 40 hour narrative, if it’s anything less than epic, people complain. It’s sort of a Catch-22, really.
What I’d like to see is random encounters done away with (unless it’s within context of the story, and don’t make them truly random, at least let the players see them coming), and RPGs shortened to 15+ hours or so.
well the world gets destroyed, the monsters win. but the party activates and ancient system that raises a floating island safely away from the monsters. the corn stalk sacrifices itself to provide nourishment to the future generations as the teenage punk and fire truck restart the human race 
yeah, that wasn’t going to be all of it. i actually have an idea for a game similar to the one i’ve described. there would be a lot more to it. in most games (including PDS) you only really only get to see the surface of a lot of things; now that is fine, that’s how you set up mystery and revelation, but i feel that expanding on what you put into the game could be the source of the content for the rest of the game.
i’m saying it would just be like: hey you’re lost in the woods! survive for 40+ hours! but with a diveristy of circumstances, a lot can be derived from just trying to live
But, what I’m saying is that if the story never builds into anything beyond what you are given initially (you could vary up the situations that you have to survive, but to what ultimate purpose?), but if the experience doesn’t significantly change in what the player gets out of it, eventually people will stop caring.
The only games that have managed to do that type of gameplay are MMORPGs, primarily because of the social aspect of the game. Your experience is constantly changing because you have real people to interact with as you play.
i don’t know… maybe i’m not being clear, the progression wouldn’t have to be that different from one of the saving the world RPGs. there’s tons of stuff you could come across, search for clues, go into ruins or whatever, but it would all be for a reasonable reason. there could still be huge revelations, maybe your actions could effect something in the world, but it wouldn’t be as simple as: there is one threat in the world and you destroyed it forever so everyone lives happily forever.
and no aquatic sports star is going to become the strongest thing on the planet.
really, something i’ve always thought of was… if i were this character… and i just destroyed the ultimate power in the universe… what’s to stop me from taking over the world? i mean if i’m so strong i could do whatever i want, right? they kinda let you do that in morrowind, since after i saved the island, i proceeded to enact racial genocide on the orcs and woodelfs… then eventually the altmer and khajit, then redguard and nord, then dunmer and cyrodil… but i left the argonians since i was an argonian
until i killed all of them too a week later
it sucked though, the imperial guards and ordinators respawn 
but everyone else was dead 
You don’t call that epic??
Anything involving sentient cornstalks is epic.
Megatherium: Ah. So, sort of like the examples I gave a little while back? Having a more personal goal to the story?
Wasn’t that called Chrono Cross?
yes, your examples could be part of it; the only things that i personally would be wary of would be tying the character to that home village or that sickly child. it could be done however the developers wanted but for my vision, the character would have total freedom in the world. no greater reason to go anywhere or do anything other than looking out for yourself and whoever is with you. as examples:
“crap this town is being attacked by creatures, i better get out of here.”
“i hear a rumor that there is a city in the mountains where few creatures tread, maybe i’ll try to make the trek.”
“a heavily protected caravan is leaving this town, perhaps i should try to tag along.”
it would kind of be a blending between the real “role-playing” of western RPGs like morrowind and the extremely linear “story-based” japanese RPGs like grandia 2.
Or because they’re not hyped up, or don’t have a female main character with globular breasts, or require the player to actually think for a change or better yet… read. RPGs with lots of dialogue shouldn’t become a thing of the past just because gamers don’t have the patience to read.
Let’s not forget the majority of gamers who hate non-linear games because the mere thought of choosing where to go next in vast non-linear world, even if you are told where to go, is inconceivable to them.
Then there are gamers who love RPGs with self-contained stories: what’s the point in making a series of games if none of them have any story ties? That’s the very thing I love about a series of games the most. What is so frightening about continuity?
With these trends in mind, how will games evolve?
If only gamers didn’t buy such crap, then the companies that release poor quality liscenced games purely for monetary reasons would go out of business. They’d only have themselves to blame.
Making games should be more than about making money and a lot of people feel that way. Unfortunately, such developers are in the minority in this day and age.
There are plenty of great games that are hyped up (Ubisofts latest attempts come to mind) but don’t catch on in the public’s eye. Prince of Persia is a quality game, but the setting and themes weren’t culturally relevant. Beyond Good and Evil has decent enough gameplay and a great story, but it’s too cartoony, too goody-goody.
Actually, other than Tomb Raider, there really hasn’t been a game that’s been a runaway success because the main character was a well-endowed female, so I have no idea where you’re getting that from. In fact, most of the time, if you have the main character be a female character, chances are, you’ll kill your sales.
As for thinking… believe it or not, casual gamers actually do want to think. Do you think Splinter Cell and Metal Gear Solid are games that you don’t need to do any thinking at all? KOTOR? Metroid Prime? All games that have tons of puzzle-solving, tons of back story, etc. Gamers nowadays want to have to outthink their opponents, not just sit there and button mash all day.
And reading, in some cases, is fine. However, the way games present their stories is completely unnatural. People don’t talk like that. People don’t speak in paragraphs unless explaining something, or trying to make a specific point. Conversations consist of banter that usually serves a purpose. One of the first lessons of visual storytelling is “show, don’t tell.” If you have to sit there and have your bad guy explain everything in excrutiating detail, you’re not telling the story right.
Keep all the dialogue if you want it. But make it have a point. Make it believable. Everything that isn’t necessary for the characters to talk about, or they wouldn’t talk about normally, drop.
I suppose this is based on your vast research into the matter? Contrary to your assumptions, the trend for mass market gamers is TOWARD open-ended games. It’s one of the reasons of the success of games like GTA and Metal Gear Solid. While MGS doesn’t have an open-ended story, it allows you to take a multitude of approaches to many of the situations. Same thing with Halo. Since the enemies react to you based on AI rather than scripted sequences, players are forced to play “open-endedly.” Games like Morrowind sell hundreds of thousands of units, and anticipation for Fable is through the roof. How is it you say that the “vast majority” of gamers hate open-ended gameplay?
[quote=“Geoffrey Duke”]Then there are gamers who love RPGs with self-contained stories: what’s the point in making a series of games if none of them have any story ties? That’s the very thing I love about a series of games the most. What is so frightening about continuity?
With these trends in mind, how will games evolve?[/quote]
When you release a game with the same brand, but a different story, you may be getting an unrelated story, but you know the type of story to expect, the level of quality to expect from the developer, etc. etc. etc. There’s nothing wrong with having a self-contained story, or for allowing fans peace of mind when they plop down $50 for a new game.
“Despite” all these things, games still continue to evolve. The stealth genre (which is quite amazing, really) is only a few years old, games like Morrowind and Fable are gaining serious momentum, games like KOTOR and Ico really push the envelope with interactive storytelling, etc. How is it you can say that games aren’t evolving?
[quote=“Geoffrey Duke”]If only gamers didn’t buy such crap, then the companies that release poor quality liscenced games purely for monetary reasons would go out of business. They’d only have themselves to blame.
Making games should be more than about making money and a lot of people feel that way. Unfortunately, such developers are in the minority in this day and age.[/quote]
You’re completely right about the first part. If there weren’t people that bought the crappy titles, the game companies would stop making them because it wouldn’t be a valid business model. They’d have to find something else to keep them afloat, or go out of business.
However, your second paragraph has backward logic. Making games isn’t just about making money. However, you need money to stay in business and to fund the projects that you really want to make. Why is that so hard to believe? If a company can make ends meet by making a Mary Kate and Ashley game, so they can fund their uber-cool design that they’ve been dreaming of for years, why shouldn’t they be allowed to?
These girls have 11 games of their own!!! O_O Can you believe that??
I don’t care what you say Abadd it’s just plain wrong!You want one good reason why companies shouldn’t trust in them?
Because they don’t trust me either; enough to make a videogame based one me anyways… 
Sidenote:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=796&e=3&u=/eo/20040424/en_celeb_eo/13959
It’s about time they got some celebrity enemies! XD
[quote=“Abadd”]
Actually, other than Tomb Raider, there really hasn’t been a game that’s been a runaway success because the main character was a well-endowed female, so I have no idea where you’re getting that from.[/quote]
Dead Or Alive. Particularly that volleyball variation.
Ah, yes. Forgot about that one. So two games (well, two series). Two series a trend does not make.
Look at all the failed attempts: BMX XXX, Bloodrayne, Portal Runner, Cy Girls, etc. etc. The list goes on.
As for Mary-Kate and Ashley, those games sell to young girls. Why is it so wrong for young girls to have games based on idols they like? And it’s not like it’s a small crowd, either. There’s a reason why the Olsen Twins are worth over $300 million.
Indulge me then; explain why.Cause from what I’ve seen so far they are just two girls that do louzy movies that don’t even premier in the cinemas…
Oh and bad tv shows too…