Video Game Lore

[Parabox]

Hey there MetConst,

Are any of us lorefags? I know I am, I need backstory and miscellaneous information. It makes a game's universe so much more immersive and enjoyable for me.

Lore is the tales and myths, but also cultures, and all in all general knowledge of the video game world itself, as opposed to how to play it. This is much applied in RPGs, but is not limited to them. BioShock, for example has huge backstory and enough to know.

tl;dr To play a game for playing, or to be introduced to a different universe?

[Quietus]

Perhaps a better description of what you're after may help.  The thread title, and the following content, doesn't really tell me anything.

[Lunaria]

I'm very tempted to just write a few "derp derp" spam lines in this topic seeing as you do it in every other topic I read.

[Buccaneer]

As my first non-introductory post, I should say that I am kind of a lorefag (which is a new word/neologism for me, hooray!)

It usually causes a sort of stagnation in my projects, rendering them "too large" to revisit them, and while I'm not a fan of back-up copies, I'm usually too lazy to redo things from scratch. Of course, these kind of quirks should be improved in order to accomplish my first hack with the help of this site (it would be preferably short) and try to seize those lorefagging issues that, luckily, could add new dimensions and enjoyment to the final product.

As a short recall, since a few years I've been setting myself a series of short goals, like writing a short story, recording a short narrative video or, as I'm going to use as an example, drawing a comic. I keep grabbing sheets of paper that have been used in one of their sides and try to write some garbled stuff about the theme. Let's say it is about War in general, and the things that revolve around it. Given that, I try to do my best to shape some geographic settings, climates, wardrobes, if a foreign language is spoken, if it's placed on an alternate timeline of planet Earth... And there's where things begin to get pretty awkward, being that I feel unable to use some quotes, terms or measures, due to the non-existence of the guy who made them in the first place, inside my filthy creation.

After a few days of washing, rinse and repeat I grow tired of actually not getting anywhere with the comic, and since the first vignette hasn't been already drawn to push me forward, I abandon the project in a mild, temporal manner. Then, when I want to recover grasp of my creation, I might have a hard time finding where I stored the assortment of notes and sketches I've made so far. It is a matter of self-discipline and a good sense of arrangement, but the results are always rewarding, you're likely to avoid retconning and absurd flashbacks, while you're giving a promising universe to your reader to delve in.


Right now, I'm kind of stuck while writing an screenplay treatment to a short film, because I noticed halfway that I would better change a lot of things, and they deserve additional research, likely to overlap the actual research that's already on the first drafts, but things work this way, I assume. Lets see if I regain heels and get on my writing again.

[Katelyn]

I'm very tempted to just write a few "derp derp" spam lines in this topic seeing as you do it in every other topic I read.

derp derp derp derp derp derp derp derp derp derp derp derp derp derp derp derp derp
derp derp derp derp derp derp derp derp derp derp derp derp derp derp derp derp derp

Ontopic: I wouldn't consider me a "lorefag". I mean, I don't just play games to be playing them, but I'm not "crazy must know everything".

[snarfblam]

For me, game play comes first. The game play is the immediate aspect of the experience, and it needs to set the atmosphere and create the mood. Back-story is supplemental, and if it is orthogonal to the game play, I'm not even interested. (In many NES games, the main plot isn't even apparent in the game, never mind back-story.)

On the other hand, if the lore is incorporated into the game in a way that makes it immersive (and not irritating or assertive; I HATE cut-scenes), it adds a lot of fun. For example, in Metroid Prime, there's a lot of back-story. For those who don't care about it, they can safely ignore it and play the game, but for those who are interested, going around exploring and learning about the game's back-story and context is a lot of fun.

[Quietus]

I'm with snarfblam.  I don't give a monkey's about anything beyond the gameplay when I first tuck into a game.  If it has spangly graphics, a beautiful soundtrack, or an engrossing story, they're all bonuses.  If it's not fun, then I couldn't care less - I ain't gonna play it.

[Zhs2]

I actually play some games to see the story unfold, if nothing else. That doesn't mean that I'll play it if it isn't fun for me; quite the contrary, as I'll happily drop anything that is past challenging to the point of frustrating. As long as it is fun to play, or it has plot twists and turns I want to see unfold, I'll play that game to the end. Some games have very interesting stories to tell.

[Silver Skree]

I'm pretty much with Zeke on this one. Story is very relevant to my interests, but I won't go through too much trouble to play something just for an interesting story. Because chances are, there's something out there with just as good of or at least a marginally better story AND tolerable gameplay/whatever it was that was bothering me about the alternative.

[Lunaria]

What zeke said. :p

[Zero One]

I'm a lorefag. Even if the game is crap, I still like to know the backstory to it. It's especially good when you read some of the backstory, then you reach a certain point of the game and you can see where the backstory links into.

[Hiroshi Mishima]

I must admit, all the many years of RPG addiction has left me a complete and utter Lorefag. To the point where it severely upsets my cousin that I painstakingly stop and read log entries and other such material that I come across in video games when he's around. When I first tried to play Dragon Age, for instance, he kept getting pissy cause I was still in the first area like 3 hours after I started cause I was trying to immerse myself in the world, it's lore, and it's people.

That said, however, there are times where it feels like there's just too much added information. A handful of journals or some exposition here and there is fine and wonderful, but when you are burdened down with tons of backstory and other stuff in one game, that's when it starts getting too much for me. In some ways, I think Dragon Age again makes a good example, what with it's 100+ Lore entries for you to find.. some of which are quite lengthy.

I actually prefer it when Lore is given to us through character interaction, such as in Final Fantasy VI where you visit the Empire and get some interesting backstory information from some of the characters. A person you can talk to will tell you how Kefka was the first person to undergo Augmentation to give normal people Magical Powers, and that it is what causes his mind to become unhinged.

Will I slog through a bad game to uncover the story? If the story itself is interesting enough, or I've already made it part way through a game? Yeah, I'll usually try to see it through to the end, but sometimes it's really hard. If the game itself plays like absolute shit, that's one of those reasons I like having a CodeBreaker or GameShark handy so I don't even worry about the gameplay and can just finish it without slogging through the rest of it. Did that with a Spawn game on the PSX, which played like shit but I'd already started it and at least wanted to finish it.

For me, a game HAS to have a story. Even if it's fairly barebones insofar as Lore goes. Spyro the Dragon back on the PSX is a good example of a basic barebones story. Not much in the way of Lore, and what there is you learn as you play the game. Don't gotta go out of your way to learn anything specific, it's just there when you get to it and you rarely learn much beyond the scope of the game itself except for maybe a reference to a past game. In today's day and age, no game has an excuse for not having even a bit of story to it, unless it's a game designed around simplicity like Metal Slug with its arcade style action. But even then, a lot of arcade games have decent storylines to them. Take Time Crisis, for instance.

Unfortunately, some games don't know how to do Lore correctly and it either bogs down the storyline or doesn't even gel with it. I think Other M was one of those games where the Lore just contradicts everything ever established, but that's more to blame with Sakamoto than the game itself, seeing as how he came up with the majority of it. Metal Gear Solid's another example. MGS 1 did it very well, and MGS 2 did it very poorly. Metal Gear Solid 4 would go on to be a Lorefag's greatest nightmare where it's just a mish-mash of backstory and filler to try and fill in all the damned plotholes in previous games. To the point where the game itself is almost entirely nothing BUT lore, which it was in many respects.

...and then of course you get games like Final Fantasy VII which not only had mistranslated lore, the lore that existed has been reinvented, contradicted, and jumbled since pretty much day one. Likewise, you have Secret of Mana which doesn't provide enough lore and things end up not making a whole lotta sense towards the end of the game. Mind you in SoM's case it's cause 30% of the game is missing, but they could've handled it better...

...sorry, rambling, I'll stuff it.

EDIT: Oh gods how could I forget? Halo. Don't fraking force me to read the gods-damned supplemental material in order to "understand" the damned Lore cause you couldn't come up with it during the game itself. I was so pissed off about people telling me what a great storyline it had, only to play it and be utterly disappointed cause no one said "oh dude you gotta read the books to see how badass he really is." No, I don't, cause he isn't. If I want to read a book on a game I'll go read SD Perry's Resident Evil books, or those awesome DOOM books. They're standalone and don't need to hold your hand on the game's behalf.