Humanity has risen!
Arcane
I was watching a let's play of Tyranny, and the little series of choices that they have you do in the beginning, and the gameplay that unfolded after and my eyes kept rolling. I remember the last Dragon Age was extremely pretentious in a similar way too and I uninstalled it after only 2 or 3 hours of play.
I don't know if I am the only one, but I am completely losing patience for game stories the more I grow old, especially if the game is trying to dump a lot of lore on me, especially made up races, made up kingdoms, fancy magic being omnipresent, or made up creatures and heroes "fighting for noble ideals" or whatever that means. I am losing all patience for villains having Shakespearean dialogue with me. I don't know who the hell started this trend (is it Josh Sawyer?), but I don't think there is a single human being except the game designers themselves who enjoy this.
I have never seen this kind of pretentiousness in any PnP campaign. The original DnD campaigns for instance were very simple and had a Dark Ages atmosphere, and not tons of pretentious made up races with Shakespearean villains.
It seems to be only the youngest generation of game designers who think this is how things should be done. But who are they kidding? You're never going to find the Brothers Karamazov or Les Miserables in a fantasy game, so why continue?
Give me simplicity any day.
In my opinion, the only time where a convoluted game setting works, is in a sandbox game where there is a sense of foreboding mystery, and where I must gather clues myself here and there, to interpret gradually what is going on, and figure out who is trying to do what. This is why for instance Age of Decadence, and the Fallout Resurrection mod, worked extremely well, eveen though they both had elaborate lore. They used it very sparsely and didn't run it in your face at any point, and if they had a Shakespearean villain or NPC he told you a few lines and then left you alone.
I don't know if I am the only one, but I am completely losing patience for game stories the more I grow old, especially if the game is trying to dump a lot of lore on me, especially made up races, made up kingdoms, fancy magic being omnipresent, or made up creatures and heroes "fighting for noble ideals" or whatever that means. I am losing all patience for villains having Shakespearean dialogue with me. I don't know who the hell started this trend (is it Josh Sawyer?), but I don't think there is a single human being except the game designers themselves who enjoy this.
I have never seen this kind of pretentiousness in any PnP campaign. The original DnD campaigns for instance were very simple and had a Dark Ages atmosphere, and not tons of pretentious made up races with Shakespearean villains.
It seems to be only the youngest generation of game designers who think this is how things should be done. But who are they kidding? You're never going to find the Brothers Karamazov or Les Miserables in a fantasy game, so why continue?
Give me simplicity any day.
In my opinion, the only time where a convoluted game setting works, is in a sandbox game where there is a sense of foreboding mystery, and where I must gather clues myself here and there, to interpret gradually what is going on, and figure out who is trying to do what. This is why for instance Age of Decadence, and the Fallout Resurrection mod, worked extremely well, eveen though they both had elaborate lore. They used it very sparsely and didn't run it in your face at any point, and if they had a Shakespearean villain or NPC he told you a few lines and then left you alone.
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