McTeddy said,

Exploration is my deal.

For me, the thing that has alway’s appealed to me about RPGs is that there is a large world at my fingertips. Not free-roaming GTA style exploration… but the kind where there are stories to be read and people to be spoken to.

I have a very short attention span. If I do the same thing for too long I get bored. But when I find myself learning about new civilizations and influencing the future of these places… I just can’t get enough.

I was actually a old school console guy until the past decade… But Origin’s “We create worlds” has really become of part of my gaming heaven.

Menigal said,

I’m with you on the “we create worlds” thing. I want to come face to face with a well thought out, lovingly crafted world. And I do mean world, not story.

It’s highly uncool for an RPG fan to say it these days, but story doesn’t really interest me. I enjoy a good story when I find it, but the vast majority of games are still some designer’s failed literary ventures being forced onto the poor sucker who just wants to PLAY THE GAME. I’d much rather roll up a character, not pick someone else’s, and make my own story in a world that I can lose myself in.

Morrowind gave me that experience, but Oblivion and FO3 were a bit too “gamey” to really grab me in the same way. I’m hoping that Skyrim will bring back the magic.

Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines Longtitle, quite surprisingly, since I hate vampires, gave me that experience too. The game was fairly linear, but Troika still managed to give the illusion of depth and fitting into something much larger. It just shows that a game doesn’t need to be a wide open sandbox to give you a great world, although that does give you more to do there. 😉

LateWhiteRabbit said,

I’m into the exploration of a fully realized world. I’m a “tourist” gamer in other words. I love traveling around and seeing the unique sights and sounds of a game world that has been lovingly crafted with an attention to detail.

I look for games that created their worlds using the ASPIRE model to create their fantasy civilizations.
A – Aesthetics/ Art
S – Science
P – Politics
I – Intellectual Knowledge
R – Religion
E – Economics
If you create a civilization taking each of those things into account and how they relate to and affect each other, you end up with a very believable culture that I can immerse myself in. Arcanum did this perfectly, as did Fallout. God I miss Troika. They also did Bloodlines . . . damn.

I’m like Menigal. I can care less about story. If the story is great and engaging, fine, but I’ve never finished Arcanum’s story. Only sometimes finished Fallout’s. Only finished Bloodlines’ story once. But I’ve played each of those games dozens of times for dozens of hours just immersing myself in their respective worlds.

If the gameplay isn’t super-compelling and the story doesn’t have me on the edge of my seat, I’ll often quit games after I’ve seen the whole tour. Explored all the world, uncovered all the unique locations. Seen each sight.

By the way, Rampant, New Vegas is quite awesome, a big improvement over Fallout 3. So, uh, you probably SHOULDN’T play it unless you have a few days to devote to non-stop playing. Basically it is everything from Fallout 3, improved and fixed, and then tons more features and locations, etc. Hell, the dialogue and story is even a hundred times better (in my opinion).

“Sometimes, a game developer playing games for research is like a narcotics officer doing coke for research.” So awesome. So true. What the hell is it about game design that means the fewer games you play the better games you make?! Look at Will Wright, Sid Meier, Miyamoto, Warren Spector, etc. those guys are some of the best in our industry and they admit to rarely if ever playing video games!

To further the drug analogy, I’m reminded of the advice on how to be a successful drug dealer – “Don’t use the product!” And we all strive to make our end product “addictive” . . . .

Xenovore said,

Great comments, everyone! (I particularly like the ASPIRE model you mentioned, LateWhiteRabbit.)

I’m more of an free explorer myself — I like to discover places on my own; cool places, places with substance, i.e. they feel lived-in, they’ve got a history. I do not like being led around by the nose, and therein lies the problem with most story-based RPGs: player agency is sacrificed on the altar of story. The Final Fantasy games are particularly egregious — fantastic story, but what can the player actually do? Not much. Others like Mass Effect and Dragon Age… meh.

Fallout 3 is one my favorite games because it felt like a place where stuff actually happened and let me explore it in my own way. (Looking forward to New Vegas — they get the bugs out of that yet?)

In a nutshell: Game-play is king and player agency is queen. Story should always support these, never impede them.

@ Xian:
Quote: “The games that just have a thin veneer of a story are the ones that I end up either getting bored and never finish.”

I’ll hazard a guess that the game-play in those games wasn’t actually that great (or at least not to your liking), and without even a decent story, the games essentially sucked. For some people (you?), a good story can make up for poor game-play. For me, poor game-play is poor game-play; story (or lack thereof) is irrelevant. That is why games like Final Fantasy bore the hell out of me — there is very little substance to the actual game-play. (And as for player agency, there is absolutely none.)

I may be coming across as some sort of story bigot, like “Bah! I hate all games that have any kind of story!” Not true… I think we’d all agree that great game-play plus great story equals pure gamer nirvana, right? But that very rarely happens.

Quote: “…by the time I get around to playing things the majority of the bugs have been worked out, system requirements aren’t cutting edge, and the toll on my wallet is lessened.”

+1 to that!

Xian said,

@Xenovore a recent example – Fate. The gameplay was pretty good if you like Diablo mechanics, but when your only goal is to reach level 42 of the dungeon, I just didn’t find it enough incentive to complete. Torchlight was another. It was a lot of fun at first, but the storyline was very shallow. I believe on both of these that I would have completed them if there had been a strong story to follow.

But you are absolutely right, a game with a great story still does not matter when the gameplay itself isn’t all that good.

Xenovore said,

@Xian: Yeah, I see where you’re coming from… Haven’t tried Fate, but I did play Torchlight and I also got bored with it. Torchlight is a good game, nicely polished, some cool features, but there’s just something about it — after a while I just didn’t want to play anymore. (And yeah, the story was weak at best.)

Diablo and Diablo 2, on the other hand, I still go back to and play occasionally. There’s still a certain depth and atmosphere — that “history” I was talking about earlier — that many newer Diablo clones are lacking.

@Menigal: Thanks! Glad to see someone else is on the same page with me. =)

And good to hear that New Vegas is finally fixed — I’ve been really looking forward to that game after having a blast with Fallout 3 and all its DLC. And I will be needing a new game to play soon…