Elden Ring - One day, we'll return together. To our home, bathed in rays of gold. "Shadow of the Erdtree" expansion news

I watched an entire play through of Dark Souls (2hrs a week on outside Extra) and it's lore was impressive but even as it was explained to viewers and the player (it was Ellens first time playing it), it was extremely easy to not know wtf anything meant as some of it could be missed unless you use a literal guide or strands of stories were left un finished/dropped until much further in into the game and DS's is f*cking huge (it was filled with - okay now remember that guy we met at that bridge, now he was talking about this bit coming up, unsurprisingly Ellen was lost a lot of the time.)

I just don't agree that this is a good way to tell a story.

I think my biggest problem with lore-through-item-descriptions isn't that you have to actively engage with it and look through them, but that items having descriptions isn't an in-universe thing. The lore is primarily discoverable through a menu screen that exists in the videogame space. It's not something it makes sense for your character to see, and yet you then make your decisions (and your character acts) based on things you know as a player but the character reasonably doesn't. I like the implied lore through character/enemy and environmental design much more than the item descriptions, because your character is seeing the same things.

Last edited by Tafdolphin on Fri Jun 11, 2021 11:18 am, edited 1 time in total.

I suppose that's a dialectic preference. It never bothered me at all, and it's infinitely preferable to conveniently placed audio diaries left everywhere.

#immersionisoverrated

Photek wrote:I just don't agree that this is a good way to tell a story.

I understand, it's certainly not for everyone. But it doesn't mean the story isn't there

There's also an incredible amount of subtle environmental/design story telling in the Souls games, it's not just item descriptions that convey the lore.

OrangeRKN wrote:I think my biggest problem with lore-through-item-descriptions isn't that you have to actively engage with it and look through them, but that items having descriptions isn't an in-universe thing. The lore is primarily discoverable through a menu screen that exists in the videogame space. It's not something it makes sense for your character to see, and yet you then make your decisions (and your character acts) based on things you know as a player but the character reasonably doesn't. I like the implied lore through character/enemy and environmental design much more than the item descriptions, because your character is seeing the same things.

I think this is a very valid criticism actually. It's difficult to solve though, right? Taking items to an NPC to get them "identified" would change the pacing of how you get the descriptions too much (you'd probably end up doing them in batches of a dozen...!). A Navi esque fairy / some kind of companion NPC describing the item as you pick it up would work, but could very easily get super annoying.

So I personally think the item descriptions are a reasonable compromise even if they don't make complete sense. And I like engaging in them! But I understand how you feel.

Or every item's lore entry beginning with:

"This item came with a note."

As cack handed as they are, I'll defend Bioshocks audio diaries till the day I join the Rapture.

Tafdolphin wrote:Or every item's lore entry beginning with:

"This item came with a note."

To be completely fair, that was only part of OR's criticism. I think what also jars for him is the amount of time you spend in menus, which are meta-conceptual to the game world itself.

Like I say, it doesn't bother me personally but I see what he means.

Also, and this relates to the "What do you love about gaming" thread as much as here: games are interactive - the stories that come from games are not just things that are told/shown to you as they are in movies/books/theatre etc. - one huge aspect of the "story" of a game is your actual experience of playing it!

I really struggle with how some people seem to get caught up on the linear, traditional aspects of story telling at the expense of the ones that only gaming can provide. "Oh I hated this game because it didn't explain something so I got the bad ending!"... no you got the ending to your experience. The way you played the game led to that outcome, the cutscene at the end of the game isn't "the story" - everything you did up to that point is!

Last edited by Tafdolphin on Fri Jun 11, 2021 11:26 am, edited 2 times in total.

Karl_ wrote:
Tafdolphin wrote:Or every item's lore entry beginning with:

"This item came with a note."

To be completely fair, that was only part of OR's criticism. I think what also jars for him is the amount of time you spend in menus, which are meta-conceptual to the game world itself.

Like I say, it doesn't bother me personally but I see what he means.

Oh yeah, I see his point. Thing is, if you have a problem diving into the menus for lore, what about item management? That's technically utilising a system the character doesn't have access to either, but it's the best way for the medium to remain functional. Like I say, immersion is one thing but if it starts getting in the way of the functionality of the piece I'm happy for it to go.

Photek wrote:As cack handed as they are, I'll defend Bioshocks audio diaries till the day I join the Rapture.

Audio diaries are fine. Hell, I wrote a bunch into my latest game script. The backlash against them was always silly imo, but again I can see why people dislike them.

Tafdolphin wrote:
Photek wrote:I just don't agree that this is a good way to tell a story.

I understand, it's certainly not for everyone. But it doesn't mean the story isn't there

As I said, the lore is actually very good, and thinking about it, maybe it couldn't really be told any different?

It's bleak-ness in delivery lends itself to the aesthetic and feel of the game overall.

Still would have liked a mini diary/journal though. :capnscotty:

Tafdolphin wrote:
Photek wrote:As cack handed as they are, I'll defend Bioshocks audio diaries till the day I join the Rapture.

Audio diaries are fine. Hell, I wrote a bunch into my latest game script. The backlash against them was always silly imo, but again I can see why people dislike them.

I just thought the delivery of them in Bioshock was daft, massive tape recorders are bad enough but Infinite wants you to believe people were leaving diaries on vinyl. :lol:

Photek wrote:
Tafdolphin wrote:
Photek wrote:I just don't agree that this is a good way to tell a story.

I understand, it's certainly not for everyone. But it doesn't mean the story isn't there

As I said, the lore is actually very good, and thinking about it, maybe it couldn't really be told any different?

It's bleak-ness in delivery lends itself to the aesthetic and feel of the game overall.

This is exactly it. Its narrative being revealed through items and world allow for a different kind of story to be told. The ambiguity and interpretation of these worlds is what makes their lore so special.

It isn't trivial to solve, but I think there are a variety of ways you could do it. While still being accessible through the inventory/menu the description text could be presented as coming from a companion NPC, or even the player themselves as their thoughts/inner dialogue - perhaps the player is known to have the ability to hear the "memories" of objects by touch, or has a magic spell of "identification".

But then its just a question of design too. There isn't much wrong with out-of-universe lore descriptions provided the player character isn't meant to react to them - so just avoid puzzles where the solution comes from reading a description. Resident Evil has plenty of find item and use it somewhere else puzzles where the appearance of the item is enough for you to solve it (ignoring how ridiculous some of the setups might be!). I can't think of any specific examples right now but I'm sure across the Souls games there are various examples of it only being obvious where an item should be used because of the description.

They should just have a streamer in the bottom corner of the screen, talking constantly about what's going on.

"Hey 'sup tarnished bros, it's ya boy xXsoulloremasterXx. Oh wow, what's this, a sword?! Oh, like, wow, like, I wasn't expecting THAT! Hope I don't cut myself on it! Ok so what's the attack power of this? Oh snap, it's an old one, how old is this?"

All the way through, that'll fix it.

Souls games very rarely rely on items for gating progress

Victor Mildew wrote:They should just have a streamer in the bottom corner of the screen, talking constantly about what's going on.

"Hey 'sup tarnished bros, it's ya boy xXsoulloremasterXx. Oh wow, what's this, a sword?! Oh, like, wow, like, I wasn't expecting THAT! Hope I don't cut myself on it! Ok so what's the attack power of this? Oh snap, it's an old one, how old is this?"

All the way through, that'll fix it.

This but only if I get the job of Souls lore person, and they let me do it with my talking cat Twitch avatar

I think you need to also take into account that Dark Souls is very much designed to be played more than once, much like certain movies and novels are, with subsequent playthroughs expanding your understanding of what is happening.

A first play through of Dark Souls will give you a surface level version of the plot, which can seem a bit shallow if you've not paid too much attention to it beyond the few conversations and cutscenes.

But on subsequent playthrough, item placements, descriptions start to make more sense within the players expanded understanding of the lore.

I'd liken it to the David Lynch movie "Mulholland Drive" which I watched for the first time at the weekend. That's a movie that leaves you confused when it finishes, but it's clearly meant for you to watch more than once to peel away it's layers and piece it together.

I loved that and I'm looking forward to watching it again soon. My wife hated it.

It's certainly not for everyone, which is fine.

Dark Souls is quite clever because you can go as dive into the story as little, or as much as you like.

Victor Mildew wrote:They should just have a streamer in the bottom corner of the screen, talking constantly about what's going on.

"Hey 'sup tarnished bros, it's ya boy xXsoulloremasterXx. Oh wow, what's this, a sword?! Oh, like, wow, like, I wasn't expecting THAT! Hope I don't cut myself on it! Ok so what's the attack power of this? Oh snap, it's an old one, how old is this?"

All the way through, that'll fix it.

You're in luck:

Tafdolphin wrote:Thing is, if you have a problem diving into the menus for lore, what about item management? That's technically utilising a system the character doesn't have access to either, but it's the best way for the medium to remain functional. Like I say, immersion is one thing but if it starts getting in the way of the functionality of the piece I'm happy for it to go.

Item management is abstraction of something the player character can also do, just presented differently. That said, my favourite inventory management would possibly be Resi 4's attache case, or in Zombi U how accessing the inventory has the player character kneel down and look through their backpack in realtime, hiding what is happening on screen as you as the player navigate through the menu on the gamepad. Those two examples are also examples of justifying the menu abstraction in universe. Another one that stands out to me is 22cans' The Trail - not a particularly good game overall in my opinion, but it makes inventory management a core gameplay mechanic as you rearrange the items in your backpack to all fit in and balance under 2D physics. A similar idea done better is Death Stranding's inventory, again a core part of the game as you physically load up every item onto the player character's body.

So basically yeah that kind of design is on examination something I really appreciate in games! I don't demand it be there in every game, but it would make sense that particularly opposite design, like the item description lore in Souls games, would not be to my tastes.

That's really interesting actually, and a great illustration of how different people react differently to systems in general. Like I say, I'd never even considered it as something that could be potentially offputting before, so to hear your reasons why it can irk is great.

I'm still looking forward to searching through every single sword trying to piece together one obscure character's motivations though!

Elden Ring - One day, we'll return together. To our home, bathed in rays of gold. "Shadow of the Erdtree" expansion news

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