How much do you care about Doom's plot?

[-Votterbin-]

90s games like Doom have spoiled me, so now I get unreasonably angry when a game forces me to spend more than 3 minutes watching cutscenes that I literally don't care about, sometimes I feel like I could go read all 7 Harry Potter books, watch a few movies, travel to China and all the way back home, take a few 4-year college courses, and I would't even be halfway through the opening "cutscene".

 

tldr my philosophy is gameplay>>>>>>>>>>>>>>story

[Cynical]

56 minutes ago, Arctangent said:

Man, I'm impressed. CAVE shooters are usually so clean and parseable with their visuals, but you managed to find something like that, that looks ... pixel vomit really is the only way to put it.

Because it's not really a CAVE shooter in the usual sense; it's a port-exclusive remix mode that wasn't done by their arcade team.

[SaladBadger]

Honestly, while id didn't seem to care a lot about story, they did at least seem to care a lot about the setting. I'm not really sure how much you can equate the two, but for all the thin story doom, wolf3d, and quake had, they at least are pretty consistent in setting. I've recently read Masters of Doom and it very much seems that the guys liked creating worlds, especially Carmack, the guy with the famous quote involving game story, but they weren't really into writing novels on them in their games. I feel this approach worked well, it gives the world a good, consistent feel, but doesn't really get in the way of the gameplay.

 

That said I am way too far in the territory of "I care too much about the story," holy fuck. Even if I don't really write novels for my maps, I'm adding some minor storytelling elements into my maps here and there. An area that you're in for five seconds with some simple gameplay that establishes the setting. The fact that Revenant100 recently revealed that Sandyman was including some minor storytelling in his own maps for the original Doom was pretty amazing.

[KVELLER]

3 hours ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

Ironically I think even id didn't give much of a damn. I think I remember several instances in which developers said that whatever story there is, it is more or less "tacked on" to begin with. When you look at things like quake and such it becomes pretty obvious that they actually started giving even less of a fuck as time passed.

 

[...]

 

With that in mind, I find it amusingly confusing that people who are "nerdy" enough to even talk about a story from a game that is gonna hit the 30s soon (and can be printed out on less than 2 pages to get more than just gist of it), are so oblivious to how little thought was given to story-telling in action driven games of that day and age.

I know that, actually. In fact, I wasn't able to take seriously the backstory in Quake's manual because of how cheesy the writing was (despite the in-game writing being pretty good). So yeah, I'm not oblivious to that.

 

Quote

All things considered, I don't care about the plot at all, I also don't really care what carmack said... Doom is about fast paced gameplay and brutal murderfests for me personally, and I don't need an incentive to ram a BFG up a cybie's ass and pull the trigger, or just beat the shit out of it with a berserk-fueled fist.

Fair enough. I get your point :)

[Arctangent]

1 hour ago, Cynical said:

Because it's not really a CAVE shooter in the usual sense; it's a port-exclusive remix mode that wasn't done by their arcade team.

Egh, that just brings to mind that FFVI port.

[Grain of Salt]

3 hours ago, Arctangent said:

I feel like this is like admitting you're the exact type of person to make those old Flash animations on Newgrounds that are taking like Pokemon or Pac-Man or Kirby and making them explode into a fountain of gore and ... well, that's really about it, since all that matters is the explosion of blood, no matter how well it fits into things, huh?

Arc, why do you have to talk such nonsense all the time.

[Lila Feuer]

13 hours ago, Grain of Salt said:

using zdoom

This shit again.

[CARRiON]

3 hours ago, Grain of Salt said:

Arc, why do you have to talk such nonsense all the time.

Because, like, if you, like, say story in games isn't important and you literally just like the visual feedback to blowing monsters into gore or, like, the fast-paced nature of the game, then, like, you're akin to an amateur Newgrounds flash animator. Duh.

[pulkmees]

I'm fine with a story in games as long as it's not in the forefront of the game. With Doom the story is kind of a cliche(imo), but it's completely overshadowed by the very addictive gameplay so you don't care. As for the setting, that's a whole different subject. I think they went a bit too abstract with some of the ideas here and there(Doom 2), but there were limitations back then too, so that kind of excuses that.

 

If it's an actually good story worth telling, it gets a bit more complicated, but I'd still rather find the clues by myself and at my own pace than being forced to watch something. Sometimes I don't even mind the linearity, if EVERYTHING is well done . It really needs to mix well with gameplay though. That's why I like Portal 2 and Half Life 2 a lot, although in recent years I've noticed that I've started to kind of dislike the Half Life 2 story more and more. I've seen too many good stories in good movies.

[KVELLER]

2 hours ago, pulkmees said:

although in recent years I've noticed that I've started to kind of dislike the Half Life 2 story more and more. I've seen too many good stories in good movies.

I never thought HL2 had a good story tbh. Valve's games have outstanding storytelling, not story.

[Nine Inch Heels]

8 hours ago, Arctangent said:

Not really, but that's because you're trying to damn the game as a vapid light show with nothing interesting going on for it. Especially considering it's a game based around dodging bullets, so making the game look like pixel vomit makes it look like the designers had very little idea on what they're doing. It really doesn't seem like you like that game all that much if you're willing to discredit it so heavily just to try to make a point.

Maybe you should play CAVE shmups on higher difficulty settings a bit more, because screens which are littered with stuff that indicates you score well are a regular occurence (not only in CAVE games, by the way), and people actually want to see that stuff happen, that's why they spend hundreds of hours at times, practicing their runs, trying to get the most out of the game's interesting scoring mechanics. That screenie took me literally less than 2 minutes to make, including launching the game... That said, first off you don't know jack about CAVE games, second off I'm not damning the game as anything you say here, and third off you need to stop telling people what you think they do (especially when they don't).

 

I am not trying to make a point, I made a point. The point is, short and simple: Doom's plot is irrelevant for me.

 

Things such as "gratification" by way of visuals do not equal story telling per se. It really does not matter if the cybie turns into a red cloud, gets ripped to pieces, falls over like a pinky does or whatever, all that matters as far as gratification is considered is that it doesn't look absolutely underwhelming, because that would be unsatisfying, and before you even try to make the argument that making the death of a large monster "impactful" equals story telling: No, it does not.

 

I play doom to dodge attacks and kill stuff, preferably fast. If it's different for you, fine by me.

 

8 hours ago, Arctangent said:

Still, there's still enough actually visible to gleam some stuff about the game's story.

There is not. Virtually anything you see there only serves the purpose of giving you information about your performance, or lack thereof. The stages and their overall appearance could be in virtually any order you can think of, because aside of the last stage (or rather a few parts of it) they're all interchangeable. It turns out that games like Deathsmiles actually let you play most of their stages in an order that you choose yourself, because it doesn't matter in terms of the game's story, it does matter for highscoring however because it establishes a "macro route" through the game on top of the "micro routes" for individual stages. Shmups are about scoring, or survival when you just picked the game up. The story, if there is any to begin with, is an added bonus or "fanservice", and the only time when storytelling actually does happen in "DDP DFK" to a very little extent is when you kill a boss and they "say stuff" (as opposed to a cyberdomen, who does not "say stuff" while dying), or after you finished the entire game. Other than that, no story telling at all.

8 hours ago, mrthejoshmon said:

Plot has to exist to make anything worth while.

 

Plot, down to the core, can, will and has shaped themes, art and even gameplay.

 

If basic plot were not there we'd be looking at a shotgun blast of shitty unmatched ideas and total inconsistent bullshit that'd look like a typical hack job early access Steam game made in Unity.

 

You want a game with no plot? You must be nuts.

Please tell us more about Tetris's or Audiosurf's rich and nuanced plot.

[mrthejoshmon]

No, I don't generally consider games like them to be "worthwhile", they are literally pointless little mindnumbers that you play less as a game and more as a distraction.

 

I also didn't go in depth to mention puzzle, rhythm, party games because they're literally an obvious exception that I didn't think there'd point in mentioning and to do so would be pointless, do I really need to explain it that in depth to satisfy you? Are you that invested?

 

It's like discussing the taste of drinks and bringing up water, you don't drink water to taste it, you don't play Tetris to experience it.

[Cynical]

2 hours ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

Maybe you should play CAVE shmups on higher difficulty settings a bit more, because screens which are littered with stuff that indicates you score well are a regular occurence (not only in CAVE games, by the way), and people actually want to see that stuff happen, that's why they spend hundreds of hours at times, practicing their runs, trying to get the most out of the game's interesting scoring mechanics.

Cave's games almost always have an inverse relationship between score-flash and quality.  The two Cave games that are actually worth playing in a sea of alternatives from other shmup developers -- Donpachi and DOJ (preferably BL, although WL's higher bullet speed and larger hitboxes have their own charms) -- have almost none.

 

"Interesting scoring mechanics" should never be applied to any mode of DFK, especially.  DFK scoring, in any version, is pure cancer.

[rehelekretep]

6 hours ago, mrthejoshmon said:

No, I don't generally consider games like them to be "worthwhile", they are literally pointless little mindnumbers that you play less as a game and more as a distraction.

 

I also didn't go in depth to mention puzzle, rhythm, party games because they're literally an obvious exception that I didn't think there'd point in mentioning and to do so would be pointless, do I really need to explain it that in depth to satisfy you? Are you that invested?

 

It's like discussing the taste of drinks and bringing up water, you don't drink water to taste it, you don't play Tetris to experience it.

wow...

[Bugnotnotthegreat]

Other than for some slight context I don't care at all.

[Novaseer]

7 hours ago, mrthejoshmon said:

It's like discussing the taste of drinks and bringing up water, you don't drink water to taste it, you don't play Tetris to experience it.

Flavoured water.

[seed]

8 hours ago, KVELLER said:

I never thought HL2 had a good story tbh. Valve's games have outstanding storytelling, not story.

True, the story in itself and the concept is not something extremely original or never seen before, but neither bad imo. The narrative is what really carries it and the experience.

[Nine Inch Heels]

8 hours ago, mrthejoshmon said:

No, I don't generally consider games like them to be "worthwhile", they are literally pointless little mindnumbers that you play less as a game and more as a distraction.

 

I also didn't go in depth to mention puzzle, rhythm, party games because they're literally an obvious exception that I didn't think there'd point in mentioning and to do so would be pointless, do I really need to explain it that in depth to satisfy you? Are you that invested?

 

It's like discussing the taste of drinks and bringing up water, you don't drink water to taste it, you don't play Tetris to experience it.

First off you don't have the slightest clue about the level of play at which tetris and its various iterations are being played these days. Second off what you play tetris for does not matter to me personally. I play tetris because I wanna score as much as my measely skills allow me to, and I don't give a damn about what you think I should play it for, so speak for yourself here.

 

It turns out some puzzle/rhythm games do actually have a story to them, which virtually nobody is interested in, because as I was saying often enough by now: Some people just don't give a shit about the story, they just wanna play that bloody game. Do you need me to explain that phenomenon a bit more indepth to satisfy you, or can you maybe just accept that stories are not the reason I play games for?

 

Do you seriously believe I play shmups for highscores because the plot somehow demands or encourages that? Do you actually think for a second that DDPs "stable timeloop story", is in any way an incentive for me to squeeze as many points out of the game as I am able to? Are you actually trying to tell me I play deathsmiles only to watch a short cutscene at the end where I get to make choice to either return to the "real world" or stay in Gilverado? The only game I played because of the plot in the last 5-6 or so years was telltale game's "The wolf among us", that is a game I enjoyed playing because of the story. As a matter of fact I play games in spite of their half assed stories, not because of them. By the same virtue I drink water not in spite of its supposed "lack of taste", but because of it (not that all water tastes exactly the same, for that matter). Did that somehow hammer it home for you, or do you still think you know better than me what I play games for?

[leodoom85]

I had played most of the games out of pure entertainment and not because some lore obligates you to play it. Doom is one of those games. Same for shoot'em up arcade games. :)

[Arctangent]

8 hours ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

general stuff

I feel like you're being too old-minded and refusing to think about story beyond how books and words tell it. Thing is, all this stuff is important to storytelling even for movies and all visual media, really, not to mention it's even more important in games because game stories are at their strongest when it's the players creating the specifics of the story. They're the ones controlling the protagonists' agency, after all - everything will slam to a stop should the player put down their controller.

 

You don't need to shove the audience's face into everything to make sure they get it. Visual and sound design is so important for selling what's going on in a game, and you're doing nothing but spitting in developers' faces by saying what they do to create a cohesive experience doesn't matter.

 

8 hours ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

Please tell us more about Tetris's or Audiosurf's rich and nuanced plot.

Audiosurf is pretty clearly a ride through some psychedelic tunnel, perhaps one somehow composed of sound waves given that the levels are generated from music. You can tell this by the fact that the player character looks just like an F-Zero racing machine, as well as the fact that the part your character moves around on is designed like a multi-lane, one-way road. Given how game-y the game is, with no real antagonistic force, it's likely some sort of vehicular sport - heck, since the sequel introduces less abstract track designs, it may just be some future sport based around reaction time and wit. Even if it's not particularly true to our world, what's going on in Audiosurf is realized well enough to make it feel like something like F-Zero - something done for entertainment that couldn't be done in our current world, but very much feels like it could be with advancements in technology.

 

Also, Tetris and its sequels do actually have traditional plots - NES and GameBoy involve launching a rocket, the Grand Master involves the development of a fetus, the Grand Master 2 involves factory work, and the Grand Master 3 involves travelling through the solar system. I actually pointed out how absurd and out of nowhere the original games' endings were, but looking at the rest I realized something: in all except TGM3, the storyline involves putting various pieces together to form a completely whole - exactly how you clear tetriminos. You have to construct a rocket before it can launch, after all, and TGM1 and 2 both directly involve something being created. It turns the game itself into a metaphor.

 

Makes me wonder why they went with a trip through space for TGM3, honestly. I mean, it works as a continuation of the first game, but it also doesn't really have anything to do with the gameplay, outside of maybe implying that the space shuttle is being repaired while it travels. Meaning that if you fail, you end up killing all the astronauts. But unless I'm missing something, there's really nothing suggesting that at all - it really does just seem like they looked at the last few games, saw that the backdrops were a sequence of related objects, and went "hey, let's use our solar system!"

 

8 hours ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

I am not trying to make a point, I made a point.

I don't really think you understand how you can't just say you did something, especially when it comes to stuff that's purely interpreted by other people. I mean, if that's how it worked, I could just say that I proved that cheese falls from the sky everyday at 7:00 AM on the dot, and nobody would be able to deny it since, y'know, I proved that it happens. But anyone here can plainly tell you that that's not how it works.

[40oz]

Arctangent, you're not wrong. Stories are important to drive the narrative and and objective purpose of playing the game no matter how minuscule it is. The thread however is "how much do you care about the plot" and Nine Inch Heels is saying she cares very little. Imagine this thread was about "how much do you care about water." It goes without saying that we all need water to live. Nobody is arguing that. But NIH is saying she would drink something different if it still hydrated her. There's nothing to argue about there because its a matter of preference.

 

EDIT i didn't even notice that mrthejoshmon already made a water analogy in this thread and it's already being disputed. I don't know how to deal with you people anymore.

[Arctangent]

4 minutes ago, 40oz said:

But NIH is saying she would drink something different if it still hydrated her. There's nothing to argue about there because its a matter of preference.

I mean, it's the same thing as people saying that they don't care about what a game looks like, while at the same time clearly never tried playing a game where everything visual was composed entirely of the colors #FF0000, #FE0000, and #FC0000.

 

Or, to keep the water comparison, "I don't care about water despite being what I drink every single day."

[mrthejoshmon]

2 hours ago, Novaseer said:

Flavoured water.

That's not the same as just water, is it, you've added something to change it.

48 minutes ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

First off you don't have the slightest clue about the level of play at which tetris and its various iterations are being played these days. Second off what you play tetris for does not matter to me personally. I play tetris because I wanna score as much as my measely skills allow me to, and I don't give a damn about what you think I should play it for, so speak for yourself here.

 

It turns out some puzzle/rhythm games do actually have a story to them, which virtually nobody is interested in, because as I was saying often enough by now: Some people just don't give a shit about the story, they just wanna play that bloody game. Do you need me to explain that phenomenon a bit more indepth to satisfy you, or can you maybe just accept that stories are not the reason I play games for?

 

Do you seriously believe I play shmups for highscores because the plot somehow demands or encourages that? Do you actually think for a second that DDPs "stable timeloop story", is in any way an incentive for me to squeeze as many points out of the game as I am able to? Are you actually trying to tell me I play deathsmiles only to watch a short cutscene at the end where I get to make choice to either return to the "real world" or stay in Gilverado? The only game I played because of the plot in the last 5-6 or so years was telltale game's "The wolf among us", that is a game I enjoyed playing because of the story. As a matter of fact I play games in spite of their half assed stories, not because of them. By the same virtue I drink water not in spite of its supposed "lack of taste", but because of it (not that all water tastes exactly the same, for that matter). Did that somehow hammer it home for you, or do you still think you know better than me what I play games for?

I'm not saying you play games for the story, you dim wit, I'm not saying that at all but it's a nice strawman you built.

 

The point I'm making, which people like you gladly miss, is that games require an overarching theme to tie the entire experience together (that being a 2deep4u David Cage drama or a just a fucking singular blurb), if they had no direction then it would either too be basic for lasting appeal or a complete mess. Tetris is, down to the core, the water of games; it is basic, simplistic, you can do much to it, it's a clean slate. Tetris is basic, it has one purpose and no lasting appeal to almost everyone but if you have nothing to play you have Tetris, just like you'd drink water when there's nothing else you want.

 

"Oh but Tetris is played at a high supper 2deep4u level by superhumans therefore it has lasting appeal" is a point, but I'd like to remind you that literally everything has a competitive side, regardless of how mundane it is, I'm sure there's a huge competitive stamp licking community but I don't see regular people being interested in such niche shit (therefore, unless you're too into it for your own good, it's unappealing in it's bandness).

 

-

 

I'm sorry if come off rude but your snarky attitude isn't exactly encouraging the red carpet.

[rehelekretep]

@mrthejoshmon if Tetris is devoid of story and therefore any kind of overarching them to tie the experience together why is it still being played in various flavours & platforms almost 34 years later whereas other games with better plot, narrative, story, themes are forgotten and buried?

its almost like the most important part of a game is the actual playing of and exploring/experiencing of the game mechanics!!!11 who wouldve thought it?!

[mrthejoshmon]

6 minutes ago, rehelekretep said:

@mrthejoshmon if Tetris is devoid of story and therefore any kind of overarching them to tie the experience together why is it still being played in various flavours & platforms almost 34 years later whereas other games with better plot, narrative, story, themes are forgotten and buried?

its almost like the most important part of a game is the actual playing of and exploring/experiencing of the game mechanics!!!11 who wouldve thought it?!

Because as I literally just said, Tetris is "water" of games, it's the baseline of games.

 

I'm supposed to be real specific, aren't I? Appeal I'm referring to is less "oooh I want to play this" and more "oooh I want to keep playing this game", better?

Edited February 15, 2018 by mrthejoshmon

[40oz]

1 hour ago, Arctangent said:

Or, to keep the water comparison, "I don't care about water despite being what I drink every single day."

Right, but you're the only on here who feels it's anyone's responsibility to try to persuade NIH to change her opinion about that.

[Arctangent]

1 minute ago, 40oz said:

Right, but you're the only on here who feels it's anyone's responsibility to try to persuade NIH to change her opinion about that.

If that's what I've been doing, then she could do a lot better at not presenting her opinions as absolute fact.

[rehelekretep]

51 minutes ago, mrthejoshmon said:

Because as I literally just said, Tetris is "water" of games, it's the baseline of games.

 

I'm supposed to be real specific, aren't I? Appeal I'm referring to is less "oooh I want to play this" and more "oooh I want to keep playing this game", better?

stop using analogies to hide your confused argument; you said that games needed story/plot to provide lasting appeal - there are plenty of people who still play Tetris, both new and returning players - just because you don't see the appeal it doesnt mean that's a good example.

[KVELLER]

I was just asking for opinions on Doom's plot, not looking to start a flame war. NIH and Arc have different opinions, and that's ok. That's why I made the topic in the first place. But ffs, just leave each other's opinions alone. And why in the hell are we talking about Tetris??

 

Jeez.

[40oz]

26 minutes ago, Arctangent said:

If that's what I've been doing, then she could do a lot better at not presenting her opinions as absolute fact.

And you can do a lot better about receiving opinions as if they are fact. 

 

You all lose.