Video Game Lore
#1
I've been watching a lot of anime lately (don't judge me!). One thing that's kind of interesting is the number of animes out there that are basically:

Guy dies and wakes up in a video game.
Guy falls asleep playing his video game and wakes up in the video game.
Here is a group of adventurers in a fantasy setting with dungeons and monsters but also they have video game stats and it's part of their normal life. Like "Oh, you have 198 agility? That's cool bro. How'd you get it so high and you're only level 15?"

The part that got me thinking is how these shows always incorporate the reality of what's happening as part of the lore of the show.
Like you need a group of heroes to endlessly fight some dungeon. Okay. Why is the dungeon there? Where do these monsters keep coming from? What's the point of it all?

Well, you see, what happened wuz... there's some God-being who spawns dungeon cores and some local monster finds it and becomes a dungeon master and starts summoning in creatures and blah blah blah and everyone wants to kill them to rank up their entirely visible stats that appear in front of them on magical parchment whenever they want to check because why wouldn't they. It doesn't necessarily make sense but it's what's actually happening.

This made me realize why I hate so many computer RPGs, especially so many MMORPGs. I mean, I put thousands of hours into them but for every hour of it there's at least one thing going on at all times that irritates the hell out of me.

The problem is video game RPG lore never matches what's actually happening.

"Adventurer! Save us! There are these wolves and they have already killed my grandmother and taken her necklace! We might all be next! Kill the wolves, retrieve her necklace and save our village!"

And there I stand looking at a field with 37 adventurers standing around waiting for a wolf to spawn. Come back two years later, the wolves are still there. Bro has gotten 159,000 necklaces returned to him. Keeps them in a barn somewhere, presumably. Stacked to the ceiling. Wolves ain't ever taking over the village. Far as I can tell the only thing they're guilty of is being bloody stupid and standing around in a field. And every time I see something like this, which is constantly, it takes me right out of the experience.

We need better lore.

Video game lore. To match the video game. I don't mean "we need deeper lore with tales of old gods and how we are the chosen one meant to save it" but more like the opposite of that. We need lore to match whatever is actually happening around us.

I want to log in for the first time and be unceremoniously handed a sword, a spellbook, a hat, and pointed towards the door because after the first 1200 "heroes" spawned in, the people (NPCs) at the starting area couldn't be bothered to give us all proper intros anymore and treated us as exactly what we were: an anonymous assembly line of cookie cutter level 1 bozos who keep tromping in out of nowhere. If there's a tutorial let it be in the form of some tireless personal imp whose only purpose in life is exactly that. Your sword, your book, your hat, your imp, off you go.

If we are fighting a war without end, don't pretend that it's a glorious fight to save our people (unless, via actual game mechanics, that's actually what it is). Just tell us the Gods are having a contest, and they are keeping score (Imp: "You can see the score on a magical floating parchment if you hit TAB"), and we will respawn when we die, may the best team win, Gods will reset the scoreboard every 3 months because they like to keep things fresh.

Now that's some lore. Now I can play the game and feel like I'm not distracted by some made up stories that are completely out of touch with what's actually going on.

I just want a lore that actually matches the gameplay.

Or vice versa.
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#2
What's this lore you speak of?!? Oh you mean that stuff that scrolls on the screen before I click that button that says "Skip"?

Too many games to fit in signature....
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#3
Which is, incidentally, probably why we skip it all:
Not only does the text not matter, but it frequently is not, in any way, actually represented in the game.
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#4
(01-02-2025, 04:17 PM)Slamz Wrote: Which is, incidentally, probably why we skip it all:
Not only does the text not matter, but it frequently is not, in any way, actually represented in the game.

That's why I liked Warhammer Online. Everything revolved around the war and killing the "other guys". Why are you fighting them? Cause Orc/Hummie/Dwarf/Chaos smash and fuck those guys. The war never ends so therefore the quests can go on forever.


Also you should watch the "Dungeon People" anime. It is wholesome murder romp full of friendship and adventure and murder.
A-LA-BA-MA MAN!
HE'S QUICK, HE'S STRONG, HE'S ACTIVE!
You can take Alabama Man to the bowling alley, where he drinks heavily and chews tobacco!
HE CAN BOWL, HE CAN DRINK, HE CAN DRINK SOME MORE, ALA-BA-MA-MAN!
When wife asks him where he's been, just use the action button and Alabama Man busts her lip open!
"Shut up, Bitch!"
"Wow!"
BEATS HIS WIFE AND SLEEPS IT OFF, A-LA-BA-MA MAN!
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#5
So, I've been playing Elite Dangerous with the Odyssey DLC.  It does a better job in my opinion with missions because of the background simulation that goes on.  Sure, "kill 20 pirates get reward" is still a thing but when you kill them it affects reputation, who controls the system, the in game economy, and then sometimes spawns other missions.  It might take 100 missions to shift the control of the system but that is based on population.  Then the game rewards just free playing.  Go out and explore, don't die, return and submit star charts.  That affects the background simulation and economy as well.  Trading, smuggling stolen goods, murder hoboing is the same thing.  However, even though it has these 30 different mission types, it still is repetitive because your little ship wacking some 2-bit pirate doesn't really mean much is the 1:1 simulation of the milky way galaxy.

Btw, I'm enjoying the game now.  They've made some decent improvements to the quality of life, upgraded faction warfare, and are looking at expanding player gameplay options.  PvP is sparse which is good and bad.  The pilots who've PvPed in ships for the last decade and snipe your power plant quickly.  Ground combat and content isn't terrible (similar to Planetside) but it'll mostly be bots.  I have run into players in open though and I think its about reading the simulation to find them.  You don't get much though for PvP rewards so it really isn't worth the hassle.
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#6
I could see Slamz being like Ainz Ooal Gown from Overlord! Hail the supreme Undead leader!

Spawning into a new world, wondering if any other Purge are around. Deciding to take over a couple nations, enslave some demi-humans, crush some puny humans while he waits for everyone/anyone to show up.
Wolfe

Guild Wars 2 - Green Wolfe (Warrior), Purple Wolfe (Mesmer), Fire Wolfe (Elementalist)
Life is Feudal - WolfesBAN GreenSon, Wolfeena GreenSon, Wolfee GreenSon
Heroes & Generals - WolfesBane
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#7
(01-02-2025, 02:30 PM)Slamz Wrote: We need better lore.
...
I just want a lore that actually matches the gameplay.

I like this! No lore at all, except whatever the player base does writes "the lore".  

So, if I pick up two stick, rub them together and start a forest fire, this becomes colloquially known as "The Burning Forest", or the "The Burning Forest that Slithe started".  Then all the environmentalist will hate me and put a bounty on me.  All the housing developers would love me and send me gold - hehe.

Happy New Year!
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#8
(01-02-2025, 03:59 PM)Arsilon Wrote: What's this lore you speak of?!?  Oh you mean that stuff that scrolls on the screen before I click that button that says "Skip"?

Amusingly they have some AI voiceover addon that reads all the quest text to you without making you sit there and I actually paid attention to the overarching storyline in classic wow after doing it the 900th time.

Also the Sword Art Online Abridged Version in youtube is pretty hilarious, redubs the series to make fun of tons of MMO tropes along with the show.
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