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Deus Ex and Narrative
Author
I am currently researching narrative in video games. The game that I use as a foundation for the analyzis is Deus Ex.
-Do you think that this is the way for RPG/FPS?
-Is a narrative the way to go for videogames? (Like Chris Lasseter stating, films do not need a narrative.)
-What games do you think that embraces good storytelling techniques?
-Can narrative in games be more powerful than in film?
-What problems are we facing when we try to include a narrative in a game?
-Would it be possible to tell a story in a game without the player loosing both patience and idea of the story itself?
I haven''t played Deus Ex yet, but wanted to comment on a couple of questions.
I had a long discussion with a few people about narrative and games awhile back that you may find useful.
My belief is that narrative can help to a degree that depends on the genre. But overall, until we get AI that can manage divergent storylines, narrative and gameplay lie on the opposite ends of a linked continuum. The more you get of one, the less you get of another (check the thread if you like to see why I think this)
Once the level of AI technology reaches a proper point, I believe so. Then we''ll be "playing" stories, and changing them and being changed by them, in some cases profoundly.
But at the risk of sounding like the folks who predicted we''d all be racing around with nuclear powered jetpacks by the 21st century... I''d be very surprised if you saw narrative that powerful in the next 25 years.
I think the main one is that games are about choice, and doing, and narrative is about experiencing and observing. If you try to make narrative about doing, this implies choice. You then have the problem of connecting all possible narratives with all possible choices. This is fine if the possible choices are small, but if they''re large, as with many modern games, then you have an exponential mess on your hands very quickly.
We sort of do this now, and it works depending on the genre and the audience. It doesn''t work very well for me at all, because 1) most game stories are bad, and 2) if I wanted a story, I''d go read a book or watch a movie. In a game, I want to be active and I want the game to respond to and challenge me.
I haven''t so far seen that done inside a narrative heavy game. A review of Deus said that there were a couple of different pathways through, but overall you couldn''t override the story. This limited the reviewer''s (and mine, as well) rating of the game, although he did say it was excellent in just about every other area.
--------------------
Just waiting for the mothership...
quote: Original post by Gocontact
-Is a narrative the way to go for videogames? (Like Chris Lasseter stating, films do not need a narrative.)
I had a long discussion with a few people about narrative and games awhile back that you may find useful.
My belief is that narrative can help to a degree that depends on the genre. But overall, until we get AI that can manage divergent storylines, narrative and gameplay lie on the opposite ends of a linked continuum. The more you get of one, the less you get of another (check the thread if you like to see why I think this)
quote:
-Can narrative in games be more powerful than in film?
Once the level of AI technology reaches a proper point, I believe so. Then we''ll be "playing" stories, and changing them and being changed by them, in some cases profoundly.
But at the risk of sounding like the folks who predicted we''d all be racing around with nuclear powered jetpacks by the 21st century... I''d be very surprised if you saw narrative that powerful in the next 25 years.
quote:
-What problems are we facing when we try to include a narrative in a game?
I think the main one is that games are about choice, and doing, and narrative is about experiencing and observing. If you try to make narrative about doing, this implies choice. You then have the problem of connecting all possible narratives with all possible choices. This is fine if the possible choices are small, but if they''re large, as with many modern games, then you have an exponential mess on your hands very quickly.
quote:
-Would it be possible to tell a story in a game without the player loosing both patience and idea of the story itself?
We sort of do this now, and it works depending on the genre and the audience. It doesn''t work very well for me at all, because 1) most game stories are bad, and 2) if I wanted a story, I''d go read a book or watch a movie. In a game, I want to be active and I want the game to respond to and challenge me.
I haven''t so far seen that done inside a narrative heavy game. A review of Deus said that there were a couple of different pathways through, but overall you couldn''t override the story. This limited the reviewer''s (and mine, as well) rating of the game, although he did say it was excellent in just about every other area.
--------------------
Just waiting for the mothership...
quote: Original post by Gocontact
I am currently researching narrative in video games. The game that I use as a foundation for the analyzis is Deus Ex.
-Do you think that this is the way for RPG/FPS?
-Is a narrative the way to go for videogames? (Like Chris Lasseter stating, films do not need a narrative.)
-What games do you think that embraces good storytelling techniques?
-Can narrative in games be more powerful than in film?
-What problems are we facing when we try to include a narrative in a game?
-Would it be possible to tell a story in a game without the player loosing both patience and idea of the story itself?
This belongs in the writing forum. But to answer some of your questions:
-Sanitarium uses good storytelling techniques.
-Theoretically games, being interactive, are inherently more powerful than any other medium. And if you could get the kind of funding that was used to produce, say, Titanic, maybe you could prove this. But that kind of funding is not available because more people go to see movies than play computer games, and for a console game particularly your audience is limited by the number of people who own your console. Also, most people don''t have big screens and surround-sound for their game systems, or the ram and diskspace to support the monstrous resolution your graphics would need to look good on a big screen. Note that none of these handicaps prevents games from being excellent, only from being more powerful than everything else. Our medium is a chained giant, and some year those chains will break.
-players not losing patience- A player? Absolutely. All players? Not on your life. Most players? It depends completely on your skill in making the game.
quote:
But at the risk of sounding like the folks who predicted we'd all be racing around with nuclear powered jetpacks by the 21st century... I'd be very surprised if you saw narrative that powerful in the next 25 years.
I dunno...all we really need are processors fast enough to be able to handle it, and processors are getting faster & faster all the time. I'll bet it would work if there was a special card or co-processor just for AI. I mean it would be technologically possible, but it would just take the industry to think it's important enough like they seem to feel about 3D acceloraters and we all know they do not.
"All you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be --Pink Floyd
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
Need help? Well, go FAQ yourself.
Edited by - Nazrix on November 12, 2000 11:31:33 PM
Personally, I think that saying we need faster CPU''s to do any decent AI work is a lame excuse because you don''t want to get the work done. You can always say that there will be faster CPU''s and that you can''t do it on today''s hardware, but it''s another thing to actually try to do it and come to conclusions based on experience. With the underuse of GPU''s right now, I don''t think programmers are fully using all the resources at hand. It takes skill and knowhow, not fast CPU''s to make good games and AI.
Assassin
yeah, you''ve a point there assassin...I mean more CPU room never hurts, but you defintely have a point. Another thing is attention to detail can give the illusion of nice AI even if the AI itself isn''t that unbelieveable...
Thief is a good example
"All you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be --Pink Floyd
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
Need help? Well, go FAQ yourself.
yeah, you''ve a point there assassin...I mean more CPU room never hurts, but you defintely have a point. Another thing is attention to detail can give the illusion of nice AI even if the AI itself isn''t that unbelieveable...
Thief is a good example
"All you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be --Pink Floyd
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
Need help? Well, go FAQ yourself.
Funding is the key to AI. This isn''t some hoky conspiricy crack, or anything like that. But the government uses Ai to its extreme. They have small insect robots,(very small) which use optic sensory to detect changes in their environment, heat, and yes, even smell, though the sense of smell on a bot is limited, because of how much space 10''s of thousands of small sensors take.
Small flying machines, or hovering craft, that use the same video technology to pin point people, and even decipher between two, such as the usual enemy or hostage. And even though these are crafted individually to perform specific tasks, they are able to mount small cpu''s on them that can handle the load. Surely, a program, with time, and even a built in AI processor could perform equally as well for a game.
All I say is the technology is there, it just needs to be learned.
Small flying machines, or hovering craft, that use the same video technology to pin point people, and even decipher between two, such as the usual enemy or hostage. And even though these are crafted individually to perform specific tasks, they are able to mount small cpu''s on them that can handle the load. Surely, a program, with time, and even a built in AI processor could perform equally as well for a game.
All I say is the technology is there, it just needs to be learned.
I saw the same debate with chess computers
They''d analyze a chess position in terms of a positive (advantageous to the computer)pattern and giving it a number. They work through more and more ply of resulting positions.
Rather than refining and making the computer understand the patterns for the optimum psychological impact or long-term gain in exchange for short term disadvantage, they just dropped in a faster chip to look at more patterns.
Of some value yes, but not in _understanding_ patterns or building the metalogic behind the series of patterns they''ve been given to understand.
ZoomBoy
Developing a 2D RPG with skills, weapons, and adventure.
See my character editor, old Hex-Tile editor, diary, 3D Art resources at
Check out my web-site
They''d analyze a chess position in terms of a positive (advantageous to the computer)pattern and giving it a number. They work through more and more ply of resulting positions.
Rather than refining and making the computer understand the patterns for the optimum psychological impact or long-term gain in exchange for short term disadvantage, they just dropped in a faster chip to look at more patterns.
Of some value yes, but not in _understanding_ patterns or building the metalogic behind the series of patterns they''ve been given to understand.
ZoomBoy
Developing a 2D RPG with skills, weapons, and adventure.
See my character editor, old Hex-Tile editor, diary, 3D Art resources at
Check out my web-site
Nazrix:
A processor 1000 times faster than today''s will help you with AI but it would be like a car with no fuel. AI needs commonsense and that is a monumental task.
Read this. It will open your eyes to the difficulty of the task but it will focus your attention on what needs to be done.
sunandshadow:
Funding and processor speed as applied to visual effects I believe will play a stronger role in the story in the future. More so than many here believe. Super realistic 3d graphics used to model the subtle cues that we pick up on can have a very strong impact on a story. Imagine how poignant the rendering of a single glistening tear flowing down the cheek of a character as she mourns a lost loved one could be.
Assassin:
Amen to not working hard enough.
Nazrix again:
The illusion of AI leads to brittleness. We want real AI, not pretend-to-be AI. Here''s an example: One agent (agent A) tells another agent (agent B) that the player is inside the machine room. We don''t want the program pretending that one agent said that to another agent. Rather, we want some kind of knowledge transfer actually happening here. Something like: inside (Player, Machine_room). Now agent B knows that the Machine_room is inside the south_annex and the south_annex is inside the power_plant. And agent B also knows that when x is inside y and y is inside z then x is inside z. So agent A has communicated one fact to agent B and agent B, using his knowledge has inferred that you, the player is inside the power_plant.
OpenGlNewbie:
This is true. And most all of this AI research out there is available to the public. Unfortunately, game developers either believe it isn''t necessary, it costs too much computationally, they don''t understand it, or they believe they are already doing cutting edge AI.
A processor 1000 times faster than today''s will help you with AI but it would be like a car with no fuel. AI needs commonsense and that is a monumental task.
Read this. It will open your eyes to the difficulty of the task but it will focus your attention on what needs to be done.
sunandshadow:
Funding and processor speed as applied to visual effects I believe will play a stronger role in the story in the future. More so than many here believe. Super realistic 3d graphics used to model the subtle cues that we pick up on can have a very strong impact on a story. Imagine how poignant the rendering of a single glistening tear flowing down the cheek of a character as she mourns a lost loved one could be.
Assassin:
Amen to not working hard enough.
Nazrix again:
The illusion of AI leads to brittleness. We want real AI, not pretend-to-be AI. Here''s an example: One agent (agent A) tells another agent (agent B) that the player is inside the machine room. We don''t want the program pretending that one agent said that to another agent. Rather, we want some kind of knowledge transfer actually happening here. Something like: inside (Player, Machine_room). Now agent B knows that the Machine_room is inside the south_annex and the south_annex is inside the power_plant. And agent B also knows that when x is inside y and y is inside z then x is inside z. So agent A has communicated one fact to agent B and agent B, using his knowledge has inferred that you, the player is inside the power_plant.
OpenGlNewbie:
This is true. And most all of this AI research out there is available to the public. Unfortunately, game developers either believe it isn''t necessary, it costs too much computationally, they don''t understand it, or they believe they are already doing cutting edge AI.
Back to the main topic of this post -
I think that Narrative is a good thing in games, and although its arguable that you are not using games to their full potential, narrative can still be a powerfull force in a game. I love Deus Ex for its story, and even though the main story stays the same, the different experiences in the game are quite different depending on how the game is played. With good game DESIGN narrative works. True, most people play games for their gameplay. But look at how popular final fantasy 7 was. Its opponents called it a movie on a playstation disc. And yet people enjoyed it. So gameplay can be used to supplement narrative, or narrative can be used to supplement gameplay, but in the end, it depends on what you want to do and the game itself. I think narrative in games can be more powerful than in other mediums.
I think that Narrative is a good thing in games, and although its arguable that you are not using games to their full potential, narrative can still be a powerfull force in a game. I love Deus Ex for its story, and even though the main story stays the same, the different experiences in the game are quite different depending on how the game is played. With good game DESIGN narrative works. True, most people play games for their gameplay. But look at how popular final fantasy 7 was. Its opponents called it a movie on a playstation disc. And yet people enjoyed it. So gameplay can be used to supplement narrative, or narrative can be used to supplement gameplay, but in the end, it depends on what you want to do and the game itself. I think narrative in games can be more powerful than in other mediums.
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