A New Game Unannounced from Blizzard

[Slowtrain]

BioShock has some great stories in it

[Purkake]

Catfight?

[Maria Caliban]

BioShock has some great stories in it

[Hurlshort]

Portals puzzles were perfect. They weren't frustrating, and that is extremely important when trying to move a narrative forward. They do have some none story based levels that I hear are more challenging, perhaps you should try those.

[Slowtrain]

BioShock has some great stories in it

[Blarghagh]

The writing in their games has always been top notch

 

I've never understood this, myself. Some people rave on about Starcraft but it was just your generic Monster Race vs Human Race vs Super Alien Race filling in archetypes and duking it out. Diablo and Warcraft have utterly generic stories as well, though I don't know if WOW has advanced the latter beyond, say, Guild Wars-style "Tons and Tons Of Generic Fantasy Fare That Is Just There To Fill Its Position". It's just that Blizzard has always been excellent at delivering those stories (e.g. Diablo 2 movie clips were amazing).

 

 

Even as a Blizzard fan, I agree that their writing isn't as genius as people often claim. Especially about WarCraft. It's a generic story, and since WarCraft III it has become needlessly complicated and convoluted. It doesn't say much good when you twist your own tale so many times you have to start retconning after three installments of your series. And, haha, WoW advancing story? With what? Maybe there's a quest that has you collect history books rather than wolf spleens.

 

However, I don't think you're giving StarCraft enough credit. The setting is pretty generic and some of the sci-fi plot devices were uninspired, but the characters were very believable. Especially considering how much we actually saw of them, and very few games kept me guessing as much as to where the story was going. Betrayals and unlikely alliances left and right; the politics of it was very well done.

 

EDIT: Dammit! That tangent made me forget what I was going to post in this thread in the first place! So here goes:

 

Recently, Blizzard apparently spoke to Microsoft about the possibility of making their next generation console MMO compatible. I suspect that this is literally what's meant with "Next Gen MMO". Which would mean that this other MMO project would not neccesarily mean they're going to kill off WoW like some people here have theorized. So, yeah. ^_^

Edited March 28, 2009 by TrueNeutral

[Hurlshort]

I enjoyed the storytelling in Bioshock. I thought all the audio tapes did a great job of creating an atmosphere. I just couldn't take the gameplay, it bored me to death.

[WILL THE ALMIGHTY]

I liked the gameplay with the exception of the vita-chambers.

 

I thought this thread was about Blizzard?

[Slowtrain]

It sorta went off on a tangent of blizzard's writing and narrative prowess or lack therof, which lead to a smattering of comparisons with the writing of other games.

 

 

An internet without tangents is like a day without sunshine.

[tripleRRR]

Blizzard's writing is designed to appeal to the broadest range of people possible. It is for the most part simple and predictable. Nevertheless it is presented well and is no worse than a good 90% of the RPG "stories" out there.

[Tigranes]

However, I don't think you're giving StarCraft enough credit. The setting is pretty generic and some of the sci-fi plot devices were uninspired, but the characters were very believable. Especially considering how much we actually saw of them, and very few games kept me guessing as much as to where the story was going. Betrayals and unlikely alliances left and right; the politics of it was very well done.

 

That's sort of what I mean. With the possible exception of WOW that I've never played (though I doubt it'll prove an exception), no Blizzard story is actually any good as a story. They're just generic mediocre stuff. Put Starcraft's plot next to FO3's and... okay, yeah, Starcraft's plot will still be better because it actually makes sense, but uh, let's move on. What SC did well was use those briefings and such to really deliver that story well. What I guess I'm trying to drive home is that it is Blizzard's excellent direction of voice acting, art style and cutscene editing, as well as making good choices on when to tell the story, how much, and when to shut up (as opposed to overindulgent Hollywood wannabes a la FO3 ending and Guild Wars cutscenes, which were actually hilarious if you looked at it as a parody of generic fantasy). And I think their writing itself gets overhyped because of their ability to deliver. With Boyarsky on board for Diablo 3 and such I am quite interested to see what happens when Blizzard's ability to deliver stories meets... a well fleshed out and complex setting.

[Mamoulian War]

If you like Blizzards voiceacting, then you are happy that you never played WoW... Most of the bosses in BC and WotLK have such bad voiceacting, i am actualy wondering how it is possible to get paid for that kind of "effort"

[Hurlshort]

Wot? More work?

[Calax]

If you like Blizzards voiceacting, then you are happy that you never played WoW... Most of the bosses in BC and WotLK have such bad voiceacting, i am actualy wondering how it is possible to get paid for that kind of "effort"

Burning Crusade wasn't that bad. But for Wrath they just sent the voice acting to hell. The guy who did Kel'Thuzad in War3 is now copying christian bale's batman voice and playing arthas. And all the other voices sound like they were done by drama students.

[neckthrough]

However, I don't think you're giving StarCraft enough credit. The setting is pretty generic and some of the sci-fi plot devices were uninspired, but the characters were very believable. Especially considering how much we actually saw of them, and very few games kept me guessing as much as to where the story was going. Betrayals and unlikely alliances left and right; the politics of it was very well done.

 

That's sort of what I mean. With the possible exception of WOW that I've never played (though I doubt it'll prove an exception), no Blizzard story is actually any good as a story. They're just generic mediocre stuff. Put Starcraft's plot next to FO3's and... okay, yeah, Starcraft's plot will still be better because it actually makes sense, but uh, let's move on. What SC did well was use those briefings and such to really deliver that story well. What I guess I'm trying to drive home is that it is Blizzard's excellent direction of voice acting, art style and cutscene editing, as well as making good choices on when to tell the story, how much, and when to shut up (as opposed to overindulgent Hollywood wannabes a la FO3 ending and Guild Wars cutscenes, which were actually hilarious if you looked at it as a parody of generic fantasy). And I think their writing itself gets overhyped because of their ability to deliver. With Boyarsky on board for Diablo 3 and such I am quite interested to see what happens when Blizzard's ability to deliver stories meets... a well fleshed out and complex setting.

Yeah Guild Wars' cutscenes were so bad they made me cringe with embarrassment. Blizzard's stories are straightforward and generic, but the dialogues are well-written and presented well. They do a good job of tying the gameplay together, and blending into the background once the gameplay kicks in. It'll be interesting to see if they can pull off a real RPG where the story is in the foreground.

[Mamoulian War]

As much as i love Blizz game gameplay (except ubereasy piece of cake called WotLK), i do not believe they can make very good stories... They are good at what they do, they make a mediocre story and wrap around awesome gameplay with games almost without bugs (not countng WoW, but i more likely score with Jessica Alba, than anybody makes bugfree MMO)

[Blarghagh]

They don't always deliver. WarCraft III had terrible story presentation. At least, I thought so.

[Purkake]

They don't always deliver. WarCraft III had terrible story presentation. At least, I thought so.

 

Well, I found Arthas' fall very cool. The video where he returns to the castle was pure awesome. It might have helped that I was like 14 then...

[Blarghagh]

The videos were very cool, but the actual in-game cutscenes and most of the dialogue was pretty cringeworthy. And the voice acting. Dear god, the voice acting.

[Humodour]

It might have helped that I was like 14 then...

 

lol. And I lol because I was like 11 when I first posted on BIS, not just because I find your post amusing.

[Purkake]

It might have helped that I was like 14 then...

 

lol. And I lol because I was like 11 when I first posted on BIS, not just because I find your post amusing.

 

The old BIS boards were awesome, too bad they were never archived. All that Planescape goodness gone forever...

[LadyCrimson]

Blizzard's writing is designed to appeal to the broadest range of people possible. It is for the most part simple and predictable. Nevertheless it is presented well and is no worse than a good 90% of the RPG "stories" out there.

Agreed. They make very basic, simple stories that are effective for wrapping around action-oriented gameplay progression, and it works, but imo they certainly haven't been genius story-tellers.

 

They are good at what they do, they make a mediocre story and wrap around awesome gameplay with games almost without bugs (not countng WoW, but i more likely score with Jessica Alba, than anybody makes bugfree MMO)

That's their key, imo. If you like the kind of gameplay they provide, they provide it consistently. And they don't seem to rush their games as much, which is one reason why I think they have a decent record re: bugs.

 

I'd definitely like to see a completely new series by Blizz (is that what you guys mean by "IP?"). It's time for a different world setting.

[Purkake]

I'd definitely like to see a completely new series by Blizz (is that what you guys mean by "IP?"). It's time for a different world setting.

 

Yeah, IP stands for Intellectual Property, that's what all the cool kids are after so that they can create franchises and make endless sequels ala Tony Hawk, Guitar Hero etc. sucking every last drop of profit out of it like thirsty vampires until all that is left is an empty husk of a product.

Edited April 1, 2009 by Purkake

[LadyCrimson]

I wonder who all the "cool kids" are?

 

But yeah, that's pretty much what entertainment-as-multi-million-business does.

[Mamoulian War]

The videos were very cool, but the actual in-game cutscenes and most of the dialogue was pretty cringeworthy. And the voice acting. Dear god, the voice acting.

 

Compared to Czech version the English voiceover of W3 was godly!!! I played Czech version for 15 minutes then sold it and imported UK version...

Edited April 2, 2009 by Mamoulian War