I keep my mind open to all possible options and of the impossible ones too. Hinze my signature.

Eh, I don't think so
There could be some Dark Messiah-esque thing where you find out who the good and bad guys really are, and you have to choose. In that case, however, there would have to be another person in a relation with you, as you would have to pick between the Outsider or someone else. Starting to sound Dark Messiah-y, like the Outsider is Xana or something. Or maybe I'm just crazy-talk speculating.

Remedy's games have a very heavy amount of Norse Mythology present in them. Max Payne has a ton, like the Aesir corporation, the death of a man named balder by a shot to the chest, and the drug "Valkyr" named after valkyries, just to name a few. Alan Wake also has a lot of this sort of stuff too, so I was suggesting that maybe Arkane was going to have large sections of the plot focus around Norse Gods and such.

No, in that case, probably not

It seems like Arkane might be remaking Dark Messiah in some ways. Like a Metroid-Super Metroid, The Evil Dead-Evil Dead 2, sort of remake, but in a different setting. In that case, the Outsider very well could be the new Xana (although from what I've seen so far, the characters look a little less black and white than Dark Messiah)

I hope it retains many elements from Dark Messiah, just improved and put into better context. (specifically gameplay, and environmental interaction)


As a random sidenote, did anyone spawn an ogre in the city using the command console? (in Dark Messiah)
SO much fun. I hope I can cheat to mess with the AI and environment in Dishonored.

Yes, it does seem somewhat like a Dark Messiah "Spiritual Successor", for lack of a better phrase. The characters are definitely less black and white, and the setting is better (IMO). I didn't like all of the aspects of Dark Messiah, but with improvements it could be good.

No (IFO)= In Factual Opinion

Dark Messiah's world is nowhere near as compelling to me, but perhaps this is because I don't like Might and Magic that much.

I don't either

The Outsider's dialogue from the trailer was great. I hope they keep the good writing.

I am not expecting too much of the story or characterization in general, even though it has amazing potential.

Why wouldn't you? It's obviously a story-focused game.

Because it's a video game. If you're going into it expecting literary- or even cinema-quality story or characters, you're going to be disappointed. That's just how it is.

From what I've gathered (and I've gathered a lot; that wiki didn't fill itself ... ) the gameplay is the primary concern. The story is there to forward the gameplay, and not the other way around. Things are as they should be.

This isn't a "cinematic" experience. It's a "video game" experience. I like that. I'm tired of the, frankly, laughable efforts to make video games into something they aren't.

I feel that a good story is very important for a good game

I anticipate a decent story. I'm not overly worried about it, though I suppose maybe I ought to be.

And we have had that where, in video games? Nowhere.


The story will be serviceable. Just like any other "good" video game story. There's nothing to worry about.

Perhaps you have been playing the wrong games.

I don't feel like making a list of games that would beg to differ, since taste in stories is totally subjective, but I should point out that, generally speaking, having a good story is one of the pillars of immersion. When you're talking about immersive sims, the more compelling the story surrounding the game, the more involved the player will become in the gameplay. People forget how great the story was in Thief, and it definitely increased that game's effectiveness.

Deus Ex managed to be immersive without a genuinely great story, but it at least had a very involved and decent one, X-Files-ish as it was.

http://www.psychologyofgames.com/2010/07/the-psychology-of-immersion-in-video-games/

Bioshock, indie games like Bastion, Braid

Half-Life/Portal universe, I rather liked the overarching story of L.A. Noire (though that's mostly only a detective story),
Call of Duty
I'm kidding please don't kill me

Those too. I haven't played LA Noire, it doesn't seem like it has a great story, but again, I haven't played it. (We won't kill you for the Call of Duty remark)

Yea, I think L.A. Noire is more of a personal like than an objectively great story. Pretend I didn't say that before!

I disagree with almost every fiber of my being. You wrote that a "cinematic experience" can yield a good narrative, but a game cannot because it is tied down by gameplay. The gameplay can serve as an enhancement to the narrative by altering the way the player feels. Good games like Silent Hill 2, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Psychonauts, Alan Wake, Bionic Commando (2009), Journey, and Portal all utilize the gameplay to advance the story. Games like No More Heroes even go so far to make the gameplay unappealing temporarily in order to make a point in the narrative.

Assuming that just because something is a video game it won't have a good narrative is absolutely ridiculous. One of the main reasons why video games haven't moved forward narrative-wise is because people are so obssesed with telling a cinematically great story, when the interactive medium has a totally different ruleset. Besides maybe 5 or so major development teams and independent developers almost no one is attempting to do something unique with gameplay that affects the narrative.

Games shouldn't have to be fun distractions all the time. That's really stupid and the reason why they aren't advancing as an art form as fast as they should be. Go play Journey, No More Heroes, or Lone Survivor. Those are good game narratives.

He sounds like the godlike guy in John Carter....

No, you misread. I stated that a game should not strive to be a movie (or a book, but good luck finding writers of that calibre in the video game industry) because it's not a movie or a book, and making a movie-like (or book-like) game necessitates putting story before gameplay, and that doesn't make for a good game. I could offer some examples of these poor games, but that would derail the thread.

You can certainly tell a good story with a game and not sacrifice gameplay (Arkane seems to know that it's a game that they're working on, and not a movie, so the gameplay needs to be good), but you have to begin with the premise that the product you're working on is a game, not a movie or a book. I don't think any developer has quite gripped how to do that, yet, although there are certainly some people (mostly Japanese; they've been doing this the longest) that are moving in the right direction. Silent Hill and Shadow of the Colossus are two of my favourites because they get closest to telling a good story through gameplay. Bastion is another good example, because it has one of the NPCs tell you the story while you're playing, rather than wait for tedious cutscenes or text.

I expect Dishonored to be guided by that kind of spirit. Although it's possible that the writers have crafted an amazing story, I'm not holding my breath. However, it'll be good enough to give the player a reason to play the game.

I don't see why a game has to put gameplay before story. Why? Because it might not be fun? Because it might become like a movie (non-interactive)? Graphic novels and vanilla novels both focus on their narratives yet they manage to stay different from each other. They each focus on telling the narrative through different methods, but still are connected by their (atleast most novels) focus on the narrative. Why can't video games do the same? Tim Schafer's point and click games are [censored] awesome, and focus almost entirely on story.

Also, you again said that any book or movie has better writing than any video game. It's literally right there at the beginning of your post. That statement is completely ridiculous and you have no evidence to back up the claim. "I stated that a game should not strive to be a movie (or a book, but good luck finding writers of that calibre in the video game industry)" Really?

Would it really be so bad if in Dishonored they sacrificed the gameplay to enhance the narrative, and then by a result enhanced the overall experience? A great example of this is Alan Wake, which sacrifices gameplay in order to tell a better story, which resulted in the player being further immersed in its world and characters.

"Silent Hill and Shadow of the Colossus are two of my favourites because they get closest to telling a good story through gameplay."
I going to try really hard not to assume here , but with this sentence and your previous opinions it almost sounds like you dislike cutscenes. Why? The story themselves and the way they are structured is what needs to move away from being cinematic (I'm against that right now because in the mainstream that's choking originality and experimentation to death right now), but not cutscenes. It seems completely arbitrary to shut off cutscenes and cinematic tools that video games can use.

I guess the point I'm trying to make in a not so clear way is that defining something as a certain category (movie, book, video game, etc.) and saying that they have to stay within the parameters of the category is silly. They're all art, and while they may have there differences that doesn't mean they can't borrow tools from other types of art. So, I don't like that you belittle video game narratives when they're the same art as everything else.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFM1Csfwx2Y
=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_saUN4j7Gw

And I'm not even kidding. Both of these scenes carry enormous metaphorical weight.