Blizzard: Game Developers Are Not Shakespeare, Need to Stop 'Writing Books' in Games

Hes not saying that storyline and narrative should be lessened, hes actually talking about the delivery of the storyline and narrative and integrating it more into the actual gameplay rather than relying on a bunch of different media in the game such as in-game books.

Its not about lessening the story content, its about moving more of it into the actual gameplay.

This dude is full of shit. Compelling stories absolutely have a place in games as long as they are well written and actually intended for an immersive game.

I have no idea what he's talking about?...

At first I thought it was about those 'in-game' books in RPGs (I never read those, do you?).

How do you tell a videogame "book" storytelling from a videogame "cinematic" storytelling, or a videogame "uniquely videogame" storytelling?

To debunk what Blizzard just said.

How many of you that have played the Eldar Scrolls series have NOT EVER read one of the books, and not enjoyed them?

The books are there for the lore, to add to the story, and only if they're half assed would they detract from the game. If that's the case though, then don't read them. Blizzard loses on this one.

Besides, all because Blizzard is incapable of pushing a storyline forward without having an entire cinematics department doesn't mean that companies like Bioware or Bethesda are not capable of pulling off something with the same effect, or more so than what Blizzard is capable of by taking a different direction on their methodology.

The real problem is that game developers arent writers. Many seem to think that because they can code a 3d engine, they also know how to tell a compelling story. And thats just not true. The answer isnt to remove writing. The answer is to hire writers.

is this guy nuts? look at a game like deus ex, beautifully written (in my opinion) and for me the writing really tied together an amazing game.

Great writing can make a good game truly spectacular, and can add a ton of content to a game (I'm thinking specifically of all the books in Oblivion; which if you're actually interested add a huge wealth of entertainment).

Maybe he should be more specific and take a stance against BAD writing.

I think the Lord of the Rings Online and Guild Wars did a much better job of delivering the story line than WoW. LotRO used the instanced Chapter missions, and Guild Wars did basically the same kind of thing. There was no reading involved at all, and the missions were well scripted and exciting, for the most part.

But all RPGs seem to have a problem with general quest text that is way too long, stupid and boring.

YES.
Also, we are not Spielberg either so please stop trying to make a 'cinematic' experience.

I agree w/ this 100%. I'm so sick of games that have huge dialogue scenes. You're a game -- show, don't tell. MGS4 is obviously the bad extreme, but even Mass Effect's dialogue was far too verbose the vast majority of the time.

"We need to deliver our story in a way that is uniquely video game,"

This is the key to what he's saying; not that there should be no story, he just doesn't think filling in the story as a wall of text (or lengthy speech) is the way to do it.

The problem with implementing this into an MMO (most current ones anyway) is that the designers are limited in how they can tell the story through subtler, more interactive ways. the requirement that all the thousands of players on the server must be able to have the same experience means you can only do so much to directly involve a player in the story. from what i've heard (i haven't played WotLK) blizzard made some steps forward in this in the latest expansion, using instancing to create more immersive interaction with quests.

imo, the only real way to do this right is to have procedurally generated, unique quests and decent AI. when a player does one of these quests, it stays done and the effects persist in the world (the village you saved recognises you as a hero, the burnt out goblin camp you destroyed remains). i think this is the ideal of what Kaplan is talking about: you don't need the quest givers to say anything other than 'omg, goblins ate my baby!', you go searching for their camp, pick up their trail (chewed baby parts?), maybe bump into and join forces with some other players, get ambushed on the outskirts of their camp, fight your way into it, maybe find a note on the cheiftans body which spawns another dynamically generated quest, return to the village a hero. thats how you involve characters in story in a game.

this may sound like a standard WoW quest but imo the experience instantly loses any sense of 'story' when i see the whole goblin camp respawn behind me as i'm striding away, or get back to the village, get congratulated for my victory and then see the quest giver wailing about her poor baby to some other schmuck. when i come back through the village in 6 months time and the village hails me (only me!) as their hero and offers me their daughters, and i'm like 'oh yeah, i remember this place', THAT is story.

i recognise the technical challenges of this but i think the tech is feasible for the next generation of MMOs.

Its not so much the fact that story does not have a place in a game, its more the medium in which that story is told. For instance in the start of a game where the developers literally just tell you the story and show the text, almost straight from the user's manual. Would it not be easier to tell the story through the perspective of the character?

If your making a zombie game, try avoiding laying out a huge history of some horrible military experiment going wrong in some narrated text or even cut scenes. Instead, display the back story in-game, such as a group of people hunkered down in a bunker listening to a radio or watching a television trying to find any news they can. Place newspapers around the room scattered around with large headlines and images. This greatly enhances a sense of immersion.

Tell the story using the medium of the game, don't span into the medium of books (unless your game revolves around them intentionally like Myst). it only takes a little more creativity and more programming, and it is totally worth it. Like the in-engine cut scenes used by Gears of War.

So World of Starcraft won't have a bunch of in-game literature. sweet.

As far as I can tell, the problem with the writing in games like WoW is that it's ridiculously obtuse. Yes, it's a fantasy game, we get it. You don't need to write every goddamn thing in Ye Olde Impenetrable Englishe. That puts people off if they're not willing to spend ages decoding what the developers are trying to say, especially when they're forced by common sense to keep the vital words for a quest direct and to-the-point; people will just scan for the important words and ignore the rest.

Deliver it in a way that is not a chore to read.

His comment has been referenced out of context here so it's no wonder no one understands. He's referring to game developers being verbose with written texts that the player MUST read in order to figure out what to do next. The actually reference is to quest design in WoW and the fact that they sometimes got rather wordy making it difficult for the player to understand what their objective and where to find it was.
As Yahtzee said in his review of Mass Effect, the best way to deal with dialog is succinct and punch it, or just get to the point and let the player decide if they really want to get in to the lore.

It saddens me how ridiculously literally people are taking this.

You people honestly thought he was specifically referring to games with actual books in them?

Lemme see is this time all the "real experts" gonna come out and tell everyone what a game should be? Are you going to cite examples of what was "properly" done game and what was crap because it has movies and written text in it?

I am not talking about the WoW dude, he is an expert, but mainly referring the the posts under this article.

Good writing in games is a must, the problems stem from unqualified people doing the writing.

Someone's been talking to Mr. Blezinski a little too much

Says a fucking MMO dev. Go fuck yourself buddy.

NO. DON'T SHOEHORN GAME DESIGN INTO THIS BULLSHIT. NO.

uniquely video game

Wait. One of the things that Wrath of the Lich King was really praised for were it's in-depth and awesome storylines. The Wrath Gate? Those two gigantic quest lines in Zul'drak? If they didn't have the detail they did, Wrath would have been a step down from Burning Crusade. What is Kaplan thinking?

I only played for as long as I did because the stories in WoW were fairly good.

The way I see it, go ahead and write a book, but don't force it down people's throats. You'll keep the people that like that sorta stuff, and won't annoy the people who don't.

That being said, I don't play anymore. I hate the end-game. I'm probably the only person in the world who likes the leveling process.

Yeah, this is the line of thinking that lead to the world of Deus Ex: Invisible War being so much more hollow than that of the first game.

There is a place for rich in-world literature, and even if the player doesn't read every piece, it can help to ground the experience, give it a sense of history.

I guess I'm saying I completely disagree. If you start out with the mindset of "you're not shakespeare", then of course you won't be.

Funny they say this, in my opinion no Blizzard game comes close to being as good as Planescape Torment.

Couldn't agree more. If I want to read a book, I'll read a book.

PLEASE LET ME MARRY YOU, KAPLAN.

Because that sentiment is so fucking true. It would be less of a big deal if seemingly every company didn't feel the need to write this huge, contrived fantasy or science fantasy backstory that has been told a hundred times before that no one cares about.

Some of my best gaming experiences have come from Baldur's Gate 2 and Deus Ex.

Story presentation can be "uniquely video game" but video games can also uniquely integrate the qualities of books, music and film.

if wow had a decent storyline maybe id play it, i know its a lot of quests to handle, but doing kill 5 birds cuz this guy wants to save his farm is a little cliche

Blizzard is surely the one to talk.

They've managed to create 2 expansions to World Of Warcraft. Both of which have absolutely no storyline and seem like a jumbled up mess of random pages in a book.