Is non-storyline lore important to you?

[Intoxicated_Ant]

How important is lore fluff to you? Is it important? Do you feel it is unimportant?

 

Personally, I love finding books and other such items that you can read to find out more information about the history of the realm, other nations and people. I feel it really adds to the polished feel of the game and depth of the environment. Having said that, I always collect books and think of it as a mini game in a way. I like having somewhere to keep my collection.

[Volourn]

Important - espciially if the lore is about dwarves.

[Raithe]

It's not all just about the books and such, it's any method used to convey lore about the world at large. It's those sorts of things that make it more 'believable', and a living, breathing world. That and it further helps identify just how you play and react to various things within the game, whether it's directly storyline or side-quest related..

[Darji]

Important as long its in the game itself. If I have to buy seperate books in real life its just stupid.

[Intoxicated_Ant]

It's not all just about the books and such, it's any method used to convey lore about the world at large. It's those sorts of things that make it more 'believable', and a living, breathing world. That and it further helps identify just how you play and react to various things within the game, whether it's directly storyline or side-quest related..

 

Now that you mention it, I think I recall in Baulders Gate 2, the messengers/town criers talking about some far off war. I always loved walking past them and hearing about events in other lands.

[Labadal]

Important, I like to find out fluff information in game about non story

 

 

It can help flesh out the world and it might help make sense of the world. Why different things work like they do, and make it feel like there is actually a history. There shouldn't only be lore about heroes, but many different types of lore, both serious and silly.

[Tale]

I don't really care about finding a ton of books to read in the game, but a well fleshed out background that shows in the world detail is important to me. If there's background on why the "Church of the Blind God" has those particular stained windows and why all the priests wear plaid on the holy day, that can make for some interesting tales.

 

And everyone loves the legendary item with the extensive backstory.

[Infinitron]

This poll shouldn't have multiple choices.

[Seagloom]

It's important for the reasons Raithe wrote. Lore enhances the believability of a setting to me. If it gives me food for thought that can impact my viewpoint on a quest or a character I meet, all the better. Bonus points if it's emotionally moving lore. Take a game like Arcanum, where lore was presented in-character even in its manual. It started immersing me in that world before I even installed the game.

[Rary the Traitor]

It's not important to me. I never take the time to read those books in any game, except perhaps when I play games I really, really love the second time around.

 

That said, if that information was presented by characters within the game, with good dialogue, I'd definitely read / listen to it (although that's still not a very important part of an RPG, to me).

[Sarog]

There are few things that I miss so much from RPGs as thick manuals that describe setting lore. Sitting down with one of those while installing a game is a treat in itself, especially when you keep reading even after your install progress is finished.

 

I love learning lore in the game through the world's own perspective more though. I enjoyed hunting down books in BG and Arcanum immensely. Much as I love tactical combat, RPGs are more than just kill simulators, and being able to enjoy yourself by finding a new book and stopping to read it does a lot to add to the experience.

[The Sharmat]

It's important to me both in game and out of game. I'll voraciously read up on lore that never turns up in the game and is only available in supplementary materials, if it's creative and well made. It's the setting that MADE Morrowind for me.

[Ieo]

Lore especially helps if this is going to be a moddable game. But I prefer to keep the information in-game.

 

I liked how Baldur's Gate handled lore: Scattered bits attached as descriptions to items, or books you can find in various places, or in NPC dialogue. Sometimes items are hard to find, though, or books placed in weird locations.

 

I loved how PS:T handled lore: Pretty much only through NPC dialogues (banter and quest), and I think the information you could get also depended on your stats. This method is far more "interactive" but still allows the player to skip if they want to, given the right dialogue choices. Personally, a combination of BG/PST interactive lore information would be great.

 

I couldn't stand DA:O's handling---the hidden codex that would pop up half the time while in combat and disappear very quickly leaving a bunch of nondescript stupid icons in the codex UI thinger... I don't remember it very well now, except that I found it terribly annoying. It was a step removed from the game world because the information was hidden in the user interface.

[Muzrub333]

Very important to me. The more Lore the better, even if it has nothing to do with the main story line. Random things just make the whole so much better.

[Semper]

very important... especially in this case whit a completely new ip. i want to read ingame books about the different cultures, important people, gods/religion, and so forth. every aspect is important and even the slightest bit of information helps to understand the purposes of the different factions/npcs.

[Wombat]

While back, I mentioned the possibility of letting the players to tie item with story-lines (whether they are sub-quest episode or the main story) in Avellone's blog comment. It may be interesting if keeping cursed/blessed item may have impact on storylines, too.

 

I wonder if the world has magic system such as curse, oath, and sealing spirit - in Black Hound, there appears to be a curse tied to the main plot, although this is triggered by an action like in Setanta's case. If the story has complex human-relationship, and it seems to be the likely the case, I wonder if there is a possibility of magic system playing a certain role in such relationship. For example, in Gloranthan setting, followers of Humakt has a strong spell called oath, which makes it difficult for other groups in the world to cheat this non-nonsense group.

[WDeranged]

Background lore is hugely important to me in any medium, in the months building up to Dragon Age's release I remember exhaustively reading the wiki and being somewhat heartbroken when I got the game...there was nothing more to be learnt, Bioware had shot their load onto that wiki and that was my lot.

 

Morrowind is my prime example of how to weave lore into a world, PS:T also to a lesser degree but it's still incredibly dense with details that don't matter at all to the main quest, I love that stuff

[Humanoid]

Sure, but caution needs to be taken to ensure that in doing so, you don't end up restricting yourself in a future instalment because of some side-fluff you've written today. I remember a Richard Garriott interview where he talks about how he sets out to avoid defining certain elements of his story elements until it becomes necessary to do so.

 

In that sense, what I'd like to see then is not just some bulk information dump, but to progress the revelations more methodically: by steps, or degrees of involvement with the actual elements that the player encounters in the game. Obviously the biggest detail would be written about the stuff you encounter in the flesh. Then you have background directly related to it, say a history. Then you have more tenuous links defined more loosely. And beyond that, stuff only tangentially related - you can leave this stuff vaguely defined, almost like myth or rumour.

[Tauron]

I guess most are lore fanatics, if world you have entered is immersive and interesting you just want to know evrything about anything. Ahhh If i could just recapture that feeling from BG...but I maybe i am just chasing the dragon and cant rally catch him :D hehe

[The Sharmat]

Oh, defining everything would be a terrible mistake. You always need something over the horizon. Anything else not only limits content, but makes the world feel small.

[LadySpace]

Extremely important. If nothing else, deep and immersive lore is a great tool for preserving scale; if you want to make a game and its world feel bigger without having to design in dozens of new locations or enemies or quests, expanding and expounding what's already available through dialogue or books is a fantastic alternative. In terms of making the setting larger, I'll almost always go for fluff and details over new monster types or exotic weaponry.

 

That said, what would be ideal (to me) would be a lore system that actually rewards the player for investigating details and uncovering information. It shouldn't be mechanical, though. When lore feeds back into the gameplay, not through stat bonuses and skill buff, but through applicable information that genuinely comes in handy somewhere down the road, that's when the game really starts to feel big and rich and alive. It oughtn't all be useful - again, I love fluff as much as the next nerdy WRPG fanatic - but making "obsessive researcher" as valid a playstyle as "obsessive looter" or "obsessive diplomat" is the mark of a truly great lore compendium.

 

Just my two cents.

[Wombat]

I don't disagree with that there should be room for nuances and interpretations. In fact, even the oath spell is something not used carelessly by GMs and we don't have real-time GMs in CRPG. Again, balances are important, here. I think the vampiric curse in The Elder Scroll series are not so popular, too. That said, a milder adpotation of the idea like that some powerful items may be considered as blessed/forbidden by a certain groups, for example, may be interesting.

Edited September 16, 2012 by Wombat

[Jozape]

Very important to me. The more Lore the better, even if it has nothing to do with the main story line. Random things just make the whole so much better.

 

Agreed. This one really is a no brainer imo. The more lore(that is logically consistent with itself) there is in-game that's unrelated to the 'main plot', the more credible the setting is, not just to the player, but the character that the player is role-playing.

Edited September 16, 2012 by Jozape

[Wombat]

Talking of nuances and rooms for interpretations around the world setting, how about different lores/historical views depending on the group of people who described them through in-game materials. If it is realistically difficult, how about only for important items/historical events?

[Gazoinks]

Yes, but only if it's integrated into the world somehow (books, expositional dialog, sidequests, whatever). I'm not a fan of codexes, as it's always felt kind of like, "Well, we're a bit too lazy to actually incorporate this into our game, so have an info dump!". Maybe I'm just cynical.