Emotional Impact

[Karkarov]

Tali: I'm on my walkabout.

Shepard: You think tracking the Geth will be of value to your people?

The term is Pilgrimage.

 

Which has a totally different meaning for Quarians than it would to the player. Your line is fine but it assumes logical leaps that simple aren't going to happen 70% of the time. The information isn't being given for Shepard it is being given for the player. Without context it makes no sense and your two lines have no context.

 

What it should have been was...

 

Tali: I am on a pilgrimage, humans might call it a "coming of age" ritual.

Shepard: I see, but why track the Geth? Surely there are safer things to do for this Pilgrimage?

Tali: Well the point of the Pilgrimage is more than just seeing the world but also serving the Quarian Fleet, a greater understanding of the Geth could be of great benefit to my people.

Shepard: Are you saying the Quarian command is considering taking back your homeworld?

 

And so on. Yes it is basically the same amount of text, but it conveys all the info you need to know as a player, and Shepard doesn't look like an idiot.

Edited November 12, 2012 by Karkarov

[Osvir]

Like I've said, I'm no master artist but I think this proves the point again (Although exaggerated, it does convey an emotion in the characters does it not?).

 

EDIT: Imoen, I could see her and imagine her smiling a lot, lots of times when she was sad I would imagine her eyes looking down, then shifting to the more "Happy-Go-Lucky" personality that she is. Lots of jRPG's use this method and I don't see why it couldn't fit in a game like P:E (in a more mature way ofc and without all the emoticon stuff)

 

Original art (only customized interface/text) to compare.

 

What you can do in photo-shop is different from whats possible in game...I'm not saying it would be impossible to have portraits change or use text like in PST or something, but it's not easy, and it's not all that expressive either way. Look at some of Quantic Dreams' games, they pretty much lead the industry as far as facial animation is concerned and their characters come across as very emotive, but that kind of thing takes a lot of work and simply isn't feasible in a game like this. Your probably better off with just having good voice actors, who like you said, allow you to imagine the body language of the characters.

 

Eh wha.. voice acting? Imoen conveys her feelings in text, and I imagine her "expression" myself (without any voice acting).

 

Voice-Acting versus Making "Facial Expression" on a tiny portrait (like I did) requires less work, less polish, less time than voice acting. I'm sure it costs less to do as well.

 

Also I want to go at the "Photoshop" argument but... *sigh* another time jezz

Edited November 12, 2012 by Osvir

[Jorian Drake]

/looks at Sylvanpyxie's avatar

 

Jade, oh how I want a sequel for Beyond Good & Evil o.O

[SGray]

Osvir, really great concept with this two:

Picture One and Picture Two

Couldn't imagine such could be done with so small alterations. Mb pack to gif - original + changed ones, for better presentation?

 

But there should be at least ten to twenty such expressions for each character for them not to feel out of the place most of the time, or you should use default picture mostly and emotional pics occasionally. Another part of work - those expressions should be generalized to fit most of possible dialogs and named properly so not only text writer could attach associate them to dialog lines. Not such a huge work nevertheless and this definitely could create deeper understanding and attachment to characters.

 

I prefer minimalistic style in telling such stories. Static image and text is enough for me, if this could be added with pre-created pictures, showing emotions and mood it could be great.

Modern technologies could overcome gap of disbelief (don't remember exact term) graphically, but still fall in it mostly when it comes to mimical expressions, not because of graphics quality, but because of complexity of model. So it has to be either some tremendous work involved, implementing facial mechanics to make it believable (definitely not related to PE) or kept simple - hand-drawn portraits and many lines of text, so your imagination is doing main work.

[USER47]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsJIU5Sbl1Y&feature=related

Wow. This is just so...bad.

 

Why not bring up something like this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IUHYmgb2xE

You don't need cheap melodrama to make a scene emotional.

[Ignatius]

I hated that Connor scene so much. I quit my evil character shortly after that, for fear I create any more horrendous displays of melodramatic voice acting.

 

Here are my top two moments of deep emotional impact when it comes to cRPGs.

 

1. Killing the red dragon on the mountain top and getting the Belt of Ironfist for Khelgar so he can prove himself to his clan. It was a hard fight and winning it made me proud. Then we went and clobbered the giants with Khelgar's newly acquired power.

 

2. Killing Yxunomei in IWD. I even saved a screenshot after the battle, I was so overwhelmed and full of glee at the victory I had but barely and quite miraculously pulled off.

 

 

*sniff* Raw emotion right here.

 

Are you listening, Obsidian!?

Edited November 13, 2012 by Ignatius

[PsychoBlonde]

 

you realize these are technological limitations right? It's difficult to show facial expressions with current technology, it's not that they don't want to, it's that generally speaking they can't...

 

Not any more. The characters in DA2 smirk, glare, etc. with excellence. And even with clunky expressions there's no reason to write the PC like they're an ignorant boob.

[pzp11]

ME3 had some poor forced elements, but seeing my favorite characters die one by one, and the whole balance between reluctant hopelessness and stubborn hope that carried all the way until the end when it's time to decide the outcome for Shepard and the world .. well that was quite moving for me at least. It wasn't like oh-kill-the-demon-lord-who-tries-to-open-the-gates-of-hell-and-you-save-the-world-thing-and-get-loot-and-be-crowned-as-king. The final scene forces the player to put your (Shepard's) own well-being as one of the possible choice alongside your beliefs. Idk, this part made me think a lot.

 

I've played through the trilogy and I put more emphasis on the character relation than anything so maybe that amplified it for me. And I agree about the kid .. that cutscenes and dreams were kinda weird but the overall success (for me) let me just get over it.

[Hormalakh]

I think what everyone is trying to convey here is that we all wish for an engaging narrative, one filled with human thoughts and emotions. We wish to be able to identify with our characters and the story and to come away from it knowing something more about ourselves. Sometimes an engaging narrative uses "melodrama," and sometimes it is done with a well-written dialogue tree. In any case, the story must be gripping and engaging.

 

"How to show narrative through game mechanics"

"Games enriching lives"

"Game mechanics as a metaphor" - Very interesting take

Edited November 13, 2012 by Hormalakh

[Ignatius]

"How to show narrative through game mechanics"

 

This was excellent. Thank you for sharing.

Edited November 13, 2012 by Ignatius

[Ywerion]

Hormalakh sir, you nailed it. And since mr Avellone and whole rest of the crew has now free hands and don't have to hold back, I believe we will get exactly that. In all honesty I personally hope that creators will implement that healthy amount of humor and little jokes, oh secret in-game list of their memorable funny quotes during the work, plenty of those from Fallout or Arcanum are legendary hilarious.

[Hormalakh]

Hormalakh sir, you nailed it. And since mr Avellone and whole rest of the crew has now free hands and don't have to hold back, I believe we will get exactly that. In all honesty I personally hope that creators will implement that healthy amount of humor and little jokes, oh secret in-game list of their memorable funny quotes during the work, plenty of those from Fallout or Arcanum are legendary hilarious.

 

Don't worry; they've already said that "maturty does not always equal being serious" and there will be humorous bits in the game.

"How to show narrative through game mechanics"

 

This was excellent. Thank you for sharing.

 

You're welcome I really recommend everyone to watch the Extra Credits videos. Some of them are a little contrived at parts, but there's a lot of interesting commentary there.

[Fafnir]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsJIU5Sbl1Y&feature=related

 

There are so much better examples of situations in video games with emotional impact, even in modern and non-RPG games. There was one moment in Dishonored, that literally made me pause for a while and think about what just happened. It was when Corvo woke up and Emily showed him a childish portrait of him drawn by herself, with "Daddy" written below the picture. A childish gesture, but it shows so much about what she thinks about main character. It's hard to explain with words, those who went through the game and are able to notice such things know what I mean.

 

I don't like forced situations, like those from some recent RPGs, where the game almost screams at me: "I'M TRYING TO MAKE EMOTIONAL IMPACT ON YOU, YOU SHOULD BE CRYING NOW!". Luckily, we won't see such artificial situations in Project: Eternity, judging by what Obsidian made in the past. Dead Money (DLC for Fallout: New Vegas) is the prime example of how they can refer to our emotions.

Edited November 13, 2012 by Fafnir

[Sylvius the Mad]

Stop LARPing

Just because you can't figure out how to roleplay in CRPGs doesn't mean the rest of us can't.

Edited November 13, 2012 by Sylvius the Mad

[Sylvius the Mad]

Though, for the record, I think the big twist reveal in KotOR had a bigger impact than anything in DAO.

[jezz555]

you realize these are technological limitations right? It's difficult to show facial expressions with current technology, it's not that they don't want to, it's that generally speaking they can't...

 

Not any more. The characters in DA2 smirk, glare, etc. with excellence. And even with clunky expressions there's no reason to write the PC like they're an ignorant boob.

 

Isometric view ringing any bells? Facial emotion may be more easily portrayed than it used to be but it's still very limited and takes a lot of work to get right, besides PE isn't exactly what you'd call an AAA game.

[Jorian Drake]

Though, for the record, I think the big twist reveal in KotOR had a bigger impact than anything in DAO.

Oh Kotor, funny times. My main character was called Raven, didn't read any spoilers/background before starting the game at all, and there was much joy and grinning when people had their "oooh Raven is Revan!" moments

[jezz555]

Like I've said, I'm no master artist but I think this proves the point again (Although exaggerated, it does convey an emotion in the characters does it not?).

 

EDIT: Imoen, I could see her and imagine her smiling a lot, lots of times when she was sad I would imagine her eyes looking down, then shifting to the more "Happy-Go-Lucky" personality that she is. Lots of jRPG's use this method and I don't see why it couldn't fit in a game like P:E (in a more mature way ofc and without all the emoticon stuff)

 

Original art (only customized interface/text) to compare.

 

What you can do in photo-shop is different from whats possible in game...I'm not saying it would be impossible to have portraits change or use text like in PST or something, but it's not easy, and it's not all that expressive either way. Look at some of Quantic Dreams' games, they pretty much lead the industry as far as facial animation is concerned and their characters come across as very emotive, but that kind of thing takes a lot of work and simply isn't feasible in a game like this. Your probably better off with just having good voice actors, who like you said, allow you to imagine the body language of the characters.

 

Eh wha.. voice acting? Imoen conveys her feelings in text, and I imagine her "expression" myself (without any voice acting).

 

Voice-Acting versus Making "Facial Expression" on a tiny portrait (like I did) requires less work, less polish, less time than voice acting. I'm sure it costs less to do as well.

 

Also I want to go at the "Photoshop" argument but... *sigh* another time jezz

 

I'm not knocking your PS skills man. I meant that voice acting is probably the best means of conveying emotion available to PE, more so than facial expressions.

[Azarkon]

Stop LARPing and realise that Dragon Age has the emotional intensity of Pokemon.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAsA2nU6TDs&feature=related

[Hormalakh]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAsA2nU6TDs&feature=related

 

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...sorry I couldn't help it. I couldn't stop laughing. :D Thanks for that.

 

Pika pee.

 

Watch this and understand...

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/6406-Think-of-the-Children

Edited November 13, 2012 by Hormalakh

[Azarkon]

For the record, a scene, taken out of its context, is rarely moving. This is why it's difficult to convey the emotional effect of your favorite story simply by showing a video / script of the dramatic moment. You have to have been sufficiently immersed in the world, narrative, and characters to be affected in the first place. Otherwise, the effect is ludicrous and melodramatic. It's the same logic behind the cliche 'you had to be there' rule for comedy.

 

As far as games go, neither Bioware nor Obsidian has produced a game with the level of emotional impact found in Planescape: Torment. This is one of the few games that have moved me to the brink of tears in its final act, not out of the use melodrama, but through the meticulous execution of a narrative and world concept, combined with effective dialogue and music scoring. The final conversation with the incarnations, in which with a high enough Int and Wis, you were able to grasp the entirety of your personal tragedy, was a sublime moment in gaming. But it took the whole game to get there. By itself, the conversation within the Bronze Sphere was no great literary feat. But as the culmination of your journey through the game, it was one of the highest achievements RPGs have attained.

 

This is the conversation that I'm talking about:

 

The sphere wrinkles in your hands, the skin of the sphere peeling away into tears and turning into a rain of bronze that encircles you. Each droplet, each fragment that enters you, you feel a new memory stirring, a lost love, a forgotten pain, an ache of loss - and with it, comes the great pressure of regret, regret of careless actions, the regret of suffering, regret of war, regret of death, and you feel your mind begin buckling from the pressure - so MUCH, all at once, so much damage done to others...

 

So much so an entire FORTRESS may be built from such pain. And suddenly, through the torrent of regrets, you feel the first incarnation again. His hand, invisible and weightless, is upon your shoulder, steadying you. He doesn't speak, but with his touch, you suddenly remember your name.

 

...and it is such a simple thing, not at all what you thought it might be, and you feel yourself suddenly comforted. In knowing your name, your true name, you know that you have gained back perhaps the most important part of yourself. In knowing your name, you know yourself, and you know, now, there is very little you cannot do.

 

But of course, you had to be there.

Edited November 13, 2012 by Azarkon

[Osvir]

Pokemon Black and Blue, Gotta Free 'Em All

[Theobeau]

@Azarkon,

 

Completely agree and that is probably my top cRPG moment.

 

As you also well pointed out, for such moments to have their greatest emotional impact, the game designers have to have succeed in drawing the player in to encourage them to spends hours with the game and immersing them completely into the cRPG world.

 

That PST did all this so well is for me why Torment is the primus inter pares of cRPGs.