[pnathan]

This kind of tiny piece by piece interaction with the world is something I desired in the late 90s, dreaming as a teen, but my rudimentary O(n) skills showed me was beyond the computers of the time.

It's gorgeous & I love the potential that brims here.

What if something was this complex and well built, but the storyline was removed - the player simply builds their own story, ala DF Adventurer mode.

[headcanon]

I'm sure we'll get there eventually, its just much more difficult to write for. Even in Westworld, the interactions were semi-scripted, with packaged "quests" along the way.

Some games come close though, the Witcher 3 includes choice-based gameplay with real consequences that last thoughout the game. However the developers still had to explicitly write each scenario as it unfolded.

[airstrike]

Since we're listing games with long-lasting consequences, I'll have to recommend folks who have been living under a rock to play the entire Mass Effect trilogy – to me, still the greatest game ever made (and I've played far too many games)

[setr]

Nothing has ever irrated me more than the realization that Mass Effect is a much weaker version of Star Control 2, and learned next to nothing from its predecessor’s mistakes. The only things I can say Mass Effect did better despite 20 years difference was combat, and perhaps planet exploration, though really only because of the move from 2D to 3D. Planet content itsekf managed to be just as lacking. (This includes graphics; star control’s aesthetic and particularly alien aesthetics are far superior).

[moate]

"Long Lasting Consequences" like changing the color of the sky during the final cut-scene...

Don't get me wrong, I loved those games, but when I played 3 and that was the big pay off...jesus.

[airstrike]

The DLCs fixed the endings somewhat, but in any case the journey itself was amazing. Sometimes it's not just about the destination but how you got there

[moate]

Eh, when you say "hey, the things you do are going to have a dramatic affect on the story" but they DON'T have a dramatic affect on the ending...maybe you fucked up a little bit?

Again: loved the games, had a lot of fun, but I was also disappointing that decisions I thought would matter wound up being relatively meaningless.

Not trying to say your experience playing the game wasn't valid, just that it might not be the best example to point to since that was a rather noteworthy example of what NOT to do for many people.

[barrkel]

Deus Ex had choices with real consequences lasting throughout the game too, fwiw.

[SmellyGeekBoy]

The entire Deus Ex series is excellent.

Well, there was "Invisible War" I suppose, but we don't talk about that one.

[z3phyr]

I only liked one Deus Ex. The first one. Nothing beats it in the genre. I still replay it every two years :)

[jki275]

Best overall game ever released.

[donavanm]

Check out some of the critiques for games like No Mans Sky. The short of it is that procedural “story” doesnt really work. You still need writers for engaging content, and that doesnt scale. If you remove written story you get something closer to a tower defense/tactics/arena shooter/grinding genre, which is “fine” but substantially different than most open worlds people envision.

[setr]

See dwarf fortress for a counter-example. I’m of the opinion that story-writing is a red-herring in video games; an attempt to apply “tricks” from other mediums, by disregarding the “interactivity” of video games. A story can be sufficiently created by means of the player’s operations, if the simulation is sufficiently complex and built to support it.

Another example is competitive fps games like CoD/Halo/Quake — the story (and singleplayer mode in general) is wholly unimportant; players will continue to have, and create, stories, despite the multiplayer modes offering little more than a setting. Interaction between each other becomes the story you tell.

No man’s sky (NMS) was simply a bad game, and poorly implemented procedural generation (procedurally generated games are appealing in that you’re exploring the system/simulation, and trying to get a handle on it. No man’s sky had a lot of “elements” to its generation, but its system was very basic; it didn’t take long to mostly understand it, and it was sufficiently complex to allow interesting new phenomena to emerge). NMS’s failure says very little about what procedural generation can offer, because it didn’t make a very good attempt at it. Spore is another example of a failed attempt. Borderlands is another, to a degree. None of these games understood that it’s the system thats interesting, not the combinatorial explosion. Thus their procedural generation is totally unsatisfying, and uninteresting.

[learc83]

Dwarf Fortress is a different kind of game from No Man's Sky or The Witcher 3. It has a huge learning curve and takes a lot of effort to play. For every amazing story that people crafted there are hundreds, maybe thousands of failed game attempts.

That's fine and purely procedurally generated games can be amazing (I'm working on one myself), but they are a different type of game play, and often attract a different kind of player. Not everyone wants to be a musician, some people just want to play rock band.

For open world exploration games in particular, in every single example I've seen, mixing in hand crafted world building with systemic game mechanics always provides a better experience.

[tomc1985]

The learning curve and effort to play are more due to UI and the authors' own stubborness-slash-artistic vision. Rimworld is a somewhat-simpler DF without as difficult a UI and is still quite capable of generating stories for its users, organically as a result of interacting systems and random events.

[thousandautumns]

For those who would like to play Dwarf Fortress, but are turned off by the incredibly steep learning curve or the offputting visuals, I suggest you look into Rimworld. Its similar to Dwarf Fortress in that it is a procedurally generated story with creation and survival aspects. But it is easier to learn to play, and has modern (albeit simplistic) graphics. I've enjoyed it quite a bit.

[mjfl]

I don't think the difference for Dwarf Fortress is the learning curve, I think the difference is that Dwarf Fortress is better designed and it is designed in such a way that it's goal is to produce "stories" that Tarn and Zach have explicitly written. I think for No Man's Sky, they had a much more vague idea of what they wanted the user to experience, and thus the experience is more vague, and less interesting.

[learc83]

That's a good point. That is a big difference with Dwarf Fortress. It's definitely a masterpiece of game design.

To donavanm's point that you need writers to create engaging content, as you've pointed out Dwarf Fortress has writers--they're just operating on a different level.

But I still think the learning curve is a big part of it. Just look at how many "Get started with Dwarf Fortress" tutorials are out there.

[setr]

I'm pretty sure the learning curve is more a result of DF's total lack of interest in reducing the learning curve, than any kind of necessary function of it. Obviously the complexity of the game leads to complexity of the interaction, but 10% of DF's learning curve is its nonsensical UI, probably another 30% is the fact that it has no tutorial or manual of its own, 20% is all the additional tooling surrounding it, which should be but isn't native to the game. And if my percentage allocation means anything, then only 40% of the game's current learning curve is essential (that is, unavoidable given the game's complexity).

I'm also not sure its fair to consider DF's writing as similar to donavanm's -- they're not operating at a different level so much as a totally different task. donavanm's writer as I understand it is trying to lead the player through a story, whereas DF's trying to produce a story through the player. The former produces an overarching theme, plot, characters, etc. The latter produces pieces that could fit in a story (or stories), and hope it will occur as an emergent phenomena of play.

It's like writing a protocol versus using one; you could say both are doing software engineering, but they're very, very different kinds of software engineering, and require totally different thinking.

Notably, story-component-writing probably also scales pretty well (the engine develops it out), while story-writing does not. Which of course is true of procedural games in general. You get the engine and the pieces right, and you've got exponentially many scenarios to explore (the problem is that, if you do it wrong, you have exponentially many scenarios that you don't want/care to explore ~~ No Man's Sky)

[patient_zero]

Ah, Dwarf fortress. I loved hearing the stories generated from it and resolved to learn to play it, but that resolve quickly faltered in the face of the interface and learning curve. Sometimes I think to myself "I should try again", but I believe that it (along with Eve) is a game I truly enjoy reading about rather than playing myself.

[chrisweekly]

"Not everyone wants to be a musician, some people just want to play rock band."

+1 for the apt analogy, and another +1 for maybe the best quote I've come across on HN in some time.

[learc83]

Thanks for that!

[donavanm]

As the sibling said Most people dont see dwarf fortress as the same “open world explore & build” genre. And the arena style FPS was called out explicitely as an interesting, but different, type of game. “No story” doesnt mean no fun. But when people say “I want to go and build and explore” they usually, unintentionally, miss the draw of a well done story component. There are plenty of interviewers with producers of games like warcraft, witcher, or skyrim who explicitly call out the limitations/benefits of a written story system in an “open world.”

[setr]

I think the issue is that you’re thinking of open world rpgs, which have trended towards very heavy-handed story telling. Mostly because they derive from dnd 3+.

But you also have dnd/adnd to derive from, which put much less effort into story telling, and more into setting/emergent stories. Roguelikes, dungeon crawlers, etc offer very, very thin stories wrapping the gameplay (dcss for example boils down to: you want to steal the orb of zot, and its on the 15th floor of this dungeon). Minecraft also gained most of its popularity before it too added a very thin story on top.

But the main thing to realize is that most games don’t have very compelling or interesting stories; at most approaching a marvel film. Yet the succeed regardless.

And even warcraft (I’m assuming WoW), I’d bet good money that 90% of its players don’t have any idea what the plot is, except at the most superficial level.

I think its mostly that the open world genre happened to really only have RPG’s currently available and well funded (I cant even think of any major ones atm beyond bethesda, witcher and bioshock); but there are plenty of games that put zero to little efforts into any kind of story, that it’s not at all obvious to me that its required in open world games.

I’d like to see some of these interviews you’re referencing, if you have links handy.

[patient_zero]

Indeed, as a once-heavy Warcraft and WoW player I can confirm that Blizzards story writing is to be actively ignored, even mocked. Great games, terrible writing.

[pdpi]

> I’m of the opinion that story-writing is a red-herring in video games; an attempt to apply “tricks” from other mediums, by disregarding the “interactivity” of video games.

I’d offer Braid and Bioshock as clear counter examples, where a significant part of the emotional punch of the storytelling comes from the interaction. Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons too.

Much like “build your own story” as a genre can’t be judged from the failings of NMS, it’s just as true that games as a conventional storytelling medium as a whole shouldn’t be judged based on the “make it cinematic” approach that a lot of studios aim for.

[revscat]

To be fair, No Man’s Sky has apparently seen some significant improvements. I don’t myself play it, but my kids have reported as much.

[Pristina]

if you did that, it would be boring.

The difference between a livestream of somebody's house and a soap opera is the storyline.

Without the story, only the world, the intensity is much lower and you would need the world to be much much more detailed to hold any interest. A real fractal of details like in a real world is much more effortful to implement compared to a good story.

[pnathan]

The interesting thing in the article is that there is no story, yet it holds the writer's interest. Narrative is not a hard requirement. Same for, e.g. Minecraft, or Legos, or other common toys.

And also, Dwarf Fortress is essentially a story building simulator, it is designed to generate interesting stories.

anyway, just some thoughts, people get fun from different things.