Mythic structure in RPGs/video games in general

[metadigital]

Ah, but the story has to be planned first, before it is told as a graphical adventure.

 

[saintfrancisnudecenterfold]

Ah, but the story has to be planned first, before it is told as a graphical adventure.

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Well, you know, there are a number of wonderful computer games based on movies, but for some reason, no one's done a good job of a Middle Earth/Silmarillion computer game or a Neuromancer computer game or a Lovecraftian computer game. And as far as I know, no one's ever tried to create a computer game out of the evocative novels of Samuel R Delany (visa viz. Nova, Triton, Dhalgren, or his everso wonderful Neveryon), nor of Tanith Lee's Tales of the Flat Earth, Secret Books of Paradys, nor Secret Books of Venus.

[alanschu]

"Wonderful Computer Games based on movies???"

[Gabrielle]

Movies based on video games.

[alanschu]

Even better.....

[metadigital]

Ah, but the story has to be planned first, before it is told as a graphical adventure.

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Well, you know, there are a number of wonderful computer games based on movies, but for some reason, no one's done a good job of a Middle Earth/Silmarillion computer game or a Neuromancer computer game or a Lovecraftian computer game. And as far as I know, no one's ever tried to create a computer game out of the evocative novels of Samuel R Delany (visa viz. Nova, Triton, Dhalgren, or his everso wonderful Neveryon), nor of Tanith Lee's Tales of the Flat Earth, Secret Books of Paradys, nor Secret Books of Venus.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Go go saintfrancisnudecenterfold!

[Calax]

just tossing a few cents in here... The reason nobody has been able to pull together a good game for Lovecraft and LOTR is because they have Limited abilities to what they can do. Also the main characters cannot be used because everyone knows exactly what's going to happen with them because the books explain it all removing the puzzle aspect. thus the devlopers usually try to just cram more "challenge" to the game by tossing more opponents at you.

 

As to why Halo2 and Zelda outsell PS:T.

 

Planetscape came out during a dead time for computer gaming. (you remember when it was considered wierd to be playing a computer game.) While halo and zelda are a simple FPS for a Xbox and a beloved franchise on a console respectivly. So one has all the semi wanna be geek jocks that play it while the other has the momentum of 20 years of fans behind it.

[saintfrancisnudecenterfold]

just tossing a few cents in here... The reason nobody has been able to pull together a good game for Lovecraft and LOTR is because they have Limited abilities to what they can do. Also the main characters cannot be used because everyone knows exactly what's going to happen with them because the books explain it all removing the puzzle aspect. thus the devlopers usually try to just cram more "challenge" to the game by tossing more opponents at you.

 

You know, a good wargame approach to this has been made in SPI's "War of the Ring" war game that used cards, dice, cardboard counters, and a printed paper map with hexagons on it. Players were allowed to move armies and characters from the story and create their own war structure based on the contents of The Lord of the Rings. This wasn't so very distant from the novels as most computer games are, but both more flexibility and more accuracy to Tolkien's presented situation would have been interesting.

 

I do believe that a good computer game version might be based on this wargame's approach to flexible situation. Instead of a portrayal of exact events and manuevering around these events, portray the world environment and characters precisely as possible yet allow players to move their characters (and perhaps armies) as would seem appropriate and feasible but to their taste.

 

In such a game, you'd have ability to move the Fellowship (or even the entire Westrenesse) but it would all be pretty much accurately done and also there would be limits such as character ability, faction inclination and outlook, the issue of corruption and the abilities and personal goals of each character. Simply portrayed, of course.

 

If the game initiated at the beginning of the books, there is no reason why Bilbo would travel to Rivendale -- he might be moved to Tom Bombadil's steading (although this might be difficult for anyone but Gandalf to find, and Gandalf might be usefully moved elsewhere so...) or the Gray Havens or anywhere else. Also, the Fellowship might have different constituancy (if one wishes to deprive a region of its heroes), and other situations might arise too.

 

Now, as to Lovecraft, the problem is most computer game designs are looking to portray a set of terse situations. Lovecraft's fictive world might be best done as a particularly normal setting with dangers very widespread yet hidden and distant from casual life, where everything is apparently normal, but a player character's happenstance situation, studies, travels, and acquaintences might bring them into contact with the abnormal and dangerous. In this sort of portrayal, a player who avoided interfering with the supernatural might notice that the supernatural was slowly consuming all casual and pastoral existence and even greater participation would be required to regain some measure of a pastoral lifestyle.

 

Of course, in Lovecraft's horror writings, greater participation in the supernatural world resulted in greater horrors being unleashed upon the individual regardless of that individual's success and regardless of how necessary success was. However, given the prevalant insistance on optimistic and victorious endings for victorious player characters in computer games, player characters might just end up back in their pastoral, nice communities without everyone else realizing that the world had been saved nor even been threatened in the first place.

 

And of course, it might be important to drift away from Lovecraft's inhumane views on natural superiority and natural inferiority as regards normally occuring structural variance.

[mr insomniac]

Planetscape came out during a dead time for computer gaming.

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I dunno about that. Baldur's Gate and Tales of the Sword Coast were just out and doing quite well. Fallout 2 hadn't been out for very long. Shadows of Amn was on the horizon, and IWD too (although we didn't really know it then). It was a perfect time, really, for Torment to come out. The Infinity Engine was known, thanks to BG's success. Dungeons and Dragons was popular again blah blah blah... I think it's just that the Planescape setting never really appealed to the masses -- from what I've heard, its PnP material never sold very well either -- and it took risks that didn't appeal to the majority of gamers.

[saintfrancisnudecenterfold]

I think it's just that the Planescape setting never really appealed to the masses -- from what I've heard, its PnP material never sold very well either -- and it took risks that didn't appeal to the majority of gamers.

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The issue with Planescape from what I can tell is that the graphics ran very slowly, load time was heinous, and the plot was slowgoing stuff at the outset. These are not formula for good sales in mass consumer situations. I was recently given a copy of Planescape as a gift and was astounded that it didn't even have the smooth game functionality that Baldur's Gate had (even on a newer computer), which was odd, because Planescape appeared after Baldur's Gate and were it an earlier engine that wasn't updated due to graphical work that a new engine would require, that pretty much explains the sloth of the game. The dialogue was pretty good and the graphics were grandly done.

 

But Planescape was lead in design by JE Sawyer, and the quality of the game is typical of his perfectionism as regards graphics and dialogue. I am sure he had nothing to do with the Yeti fiasco in Icewind Dale I (where the Yeti quest bore remarkable similarity to a Call of Cthulhu short adventure, except with less a moral end). Of course, the game was still fun in many areas, and incredibly well done if I recollect, although as with all painted games such as this, the dungeons were tiny.

 

Let us hope to see some marvellously wide and deep dungeons with Neverwinter Nights 2!

[alanschu]

Sawyer made Planescape: Torment?

 

 

...

[saintfrancisnudecenterfold]

Sawyer made Planescape: Torment?

 

 

...

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Sorry, it was Chris Avellone.

 

Wikipedia shows Sawyer as being lead designer and my personal copy of Torment was smashed in an accident.

[Gromnir]

Sawyer made Planescape: Torment?

 

 

...

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Sorry, it was Chris Avellone.

 

Wikipedia shows Sawyer as being lead designer and my personal copy of Torment was smashed in an accident.

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*nods*

 

some of your posts make more sense now.

 

advice: never rely solely on a single internet source as such knowledge tends to be counterfited and is often of dubious accuracy.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[metadigital]

I just picked up a great book (well, two): The Greek Myths two volume set, by Robert Graves (he wrote I, Claudius, The Nazarine Gospel Restored (a re-examination of primitive Christianity), but is most fondly remembered for his poety).

... And, in the two volumes of The Greek Myths, he demonstrates with a dazzling display of relevant knowledge that Greek mythology is 'no more mysterious in content than are modern election cartoons'. His work covers, in nearly two hundred sections, the creation myths, the legends of the birth and lives of the great Olympians, the Theseus, Oedipus, and Heracles cycles, the Argonaut voyage, the tale of Troy, and much else.

All the scattered elements of each myth have been assempled into a harmonious narrative, and many variants are recorded which may help determine its ritual or historical meaning ... and a full commentary on each myth explains and interprets the classical version in the light of today's archaeological and anthropological knowledge.

Penguin ISBN 0-14-001027-0

 

So far it looks pretty good. I shall be pleased to report my findings ...

[saintfrancisnudecenterfold]

some of your posts make more sense now.

 

Please do not slyly insult me. I begin feeling aggressive and violent when people do that, it's an emotional situation we've all undergone I'm sure. No, I do not play FPS as means of catharsis, because I do not experience catharsis by fictive actions.

 

Just cool it and play it civil, ok? You seem like you might normally be a nice guy.

 

I do not use Wikipedia for all of my reference needs, but it does tend to be handy.

[Cantousent]

No, don't invoke the Hellfire Maelstrom power! NOOOOO!

 

Anyhow, I think it's perfectly legitimate to find meaning in games. If you did come to some sort of cartharsis by playing a fictional character, would that be bad?

 

Unlike Gromnir, I'm not clever enough to be sly, so don't take my comments as insults. I'm serious. For all intents and purposes, folks on message boards are fictional characters and we get angry with one another and sometimes even find meaning or understanding in communicating with one another.

[metadigital]

Meaningless.

[saintfrancisnudecenterfold]

Meaningless.

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Meaningmore.

 

We are given cause to wonder if PNJ is to be the cradle of the gods.

[Gabrielle]

Speaking of meaningless, old thread?

[Bokishi]

lockdown?

[metadigital]

Just let the topic die. Stop adding meaningless comments.