This world needs lore!

from Elemental Forums

What happen with the promise to have world generated which has a story and lore in it? I am not talking about campaign, I am talking about regular play where the story is played through interaction with other AI, heroes and through quests. There is everything in the game that can do it - there is diplomacy, there are quests, but there is no story, whatsoever. The quest are stupid non-related random things, which does nothing to advance your diplomatic relationship or understanding about this world.

You could have quest, to acquire something from your neighbor territory, and then the neighbor would become angry with you because of this, and build diplomatic relationship around this. There are so many possibilities to shape the game with the story. You could have several story lines in one game, randomly chosen from the pre-written stories, or you could have "random story generator" or a mix of those.

Campaigns are good for telling a story one time in very fixed and rigid way, but this game just made perfect to have different type of storytelling, where you can play it over and over and have different variation of mostly the same lore.

And I do not think that it is THAT difficult to do, because most of the tools are already in the game...

I mean, if it not lore, then why play this game? The game mechanics is kind of standard, so I would play something else, like civilization, if it is just TBS without lore.

elemental
16,575 views 21 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

^ agreed about lack of depth of the backstory, etc.

Sounds like a lovely opportunity for the modders among us to take on a new challenge!

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting ElanaAhova, reply 1
^ agreed about lack of depth of the backstory, etc.

Sounds like a lovely opportunity for the modders among us to take on a new challenge!
End of ElanaAhova's quote

This mod mania is maddening. Supporting mods with the under-the-hood part of the game design is a fine thing. Expecting them to cover vast tracts of content wasteland is just wrong. Especially with a frakking cross-marketing book deal. Gah.

Sins of a Solar Empire II
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting GW, reply 2



Quoting ElanaAhova,
reply 1
^ agreed about lack of depth of the backstory, etc.

Sounds like a lovely opportunity for the modders among us to take on a new challenge!


This mod mania is maddening. Supporting mods with the under-the-hood part of the game design is a fine thing. Expecting them to cover vast tracts of content wasteland is just wrong. Especially with a frakking cross-marketing book deal. Gah.
End of GW's quote

I agree.  It's like having to fill in the pot holes in the street in front of my house myself.  Sure, the city should do it, and I pay taxes for them to do it, but just because they should have done it doesn't mean they do and if I don't want to run into that hole, I have to do it myself.  I hate the idea that the community have to fix shit in a game that should have already been done. 

 

And if you say, Stardock, the game wasn't complete when it was released, they say "Just because you don't like the final product, doesn't mean it wasn't finished"  Like selling a house with three walls and no bathroom, that's how it was designed, if you don't like it, don't buy it.  But at least with the house, you could see the faults before you bought it.  This game isn't going to be what it should have been on day one for a year.  Argue it if you want, but thats the truth and only through the power of denial could anyone at Stardock refute that.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Relax, we're still in beta.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Beta means that main parts are already there. I do not see lore at all.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

They're still working on it.  More or less.  1.1 was a major overhaul.  You're asking for more gravy/sugar on top.  It'll get there eventually.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Supreme, reply 6
They're still working on it.  More or less.  1.1 was a major overhaul.  You're asking for more gravy/sugar on top.  It'll get there eventually.
End of Supreme's quote

That's just back to the "what is content and how important is it?" question. I'm not asking for gravy or icing at all; I'm asking for more nutritional value in whatever gets tarted up by graphics and combat math.

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

No, this is not gravy. There must be a coherent story telling engine, that connects everything in game. There should be "story generator", which is also may be non-trivial task. I just do not see effort in doing any of this.

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

Yeah, there were a lot of things that were advertised on the forums that never got into the game. Unfortunatly, its not just a missing feature or two that makes Elemental the disaster that it is. This game still isn't what it should have been on day one. The original GC2 was better and I was expecting Elemental to be at least on par at launch.

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

Yes.

Has anyone heard anything about the scope of the expansions? I've heard some troubling talk of them being "micro-expansions" a couple of times in the past couple of weeks.

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting LightofAbraxas, reply 10
Yes.

Has anyone heard anything about the scope of the expansions? I've heard some troubling talk of them being "micro-expansions" a couple of times in the past couple of weeks.
End of LightofAbraxas's quote
Then you haven't been hearing in the correct place. At least I haven't read anything by Stardock this last couple of weeks talking about doing microexpansions.

Reply #12 from Elemental Forums Top

It is a good sign when the subject of threads turn to the game world needs lore from fix this and that is broken...

Just sayin...

Reply #13 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Wintersong, reply 11

Quoting LightofAbraxas, reply 10Yes.

Has anyone heard anything about the scope of the expansions? I've heard some troubling talk of them being "micro-expansions" a couple of times in the past couple of weeks.
Then you haven't been hearing in the correct place. At least I haven't read anything by Stardock this last couple of weeks talking about doing microexpansions.
End of Wintersong's quote

 

I think its just paranoia due to current content and free expansion promises. I've read nothing about micro expansions from a reliable source and I read something recently by a dev stating that they would be large content expansions not fix current game expansions.

 

Reply #14 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Gene1966, reply 12
It is a good sign when the subject of threads turn to the game world needs lore from fix this and that is broken...

Just sayin...
End of Gene1966's quote

Well, to be honest, it is just this thread, and may be couple more threads in the past. The rest 99% is about the other things you have mentioned.

Reply #15 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Lord, reply 3

And if you say, Stardock, the game wasn't complete when it was released, they say "Just because you don't like the final product, doesn't mean it wasn't finished"  Like selling a house with three walls and no bathroom, that's how it was designed, if you don't like it, don't buy it.  But at least with the house, you could see the faults before you bought it.  This game isn't going to be what it should have been on day one for a year.  Argue it if you want, but thats the truth and only through the power of denial could anyone at Stardock refute that.
End of Lord's quote

 

How about that companion book "Destiny's Embers"?

Does reading the book provide some background lore to the game world?

Reply #16 from Elemental Forums Top

i disagree that this game needs lore... MoM had no backstory at all (besides whatever stories you make up about Merlin, Rajak, etc)... and that game was great!

So Elemental should focus on making the game fun to play before worrying about stupid crap like story. At the end of the day the most popular games in the world have no story, story is not a necessary feature for games, if you want story read a book or watch a movie. If you want a good story, well then you will have to write it yourself since I haven't experienced a good story in 5 years.

Reply #17 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting UmbralAngel, reply 16
i disagree that this game needs lore... MoM had no backstory at all (besides whatever stories you make up about Merlin, Rajak, etc)... and that game was great!

So Elemental should focus on making the game fun to play before worrying about stupid crap like story. At the end of the day the most popular games in the world have no story, story is not a necessary feature for games, if you want story read a book or watch a movie. If you want a good story, well then you will have to write it yourself since I haven't experienced a good story in 5 years.
End of UmbralAngel's quote

I've never wanted the game to use 'lore' to the extent that games like King of Dragon Pass did, but I think you're missing the point that many of us 'pro-lore' folks are complaining about: the game needs to have an internal logic that is more than just the latest iteration of balance twiddling for the math under the hood. Because there is no clear framework for the relations amongst the Kingdom and Fallen factions, much less a set of base principles for how magic works, each build of the game so far has tasted like refrigerator soup. Don't get me wrong--I love a good refrigerator soup; but for long-term replay value, you need at least a recipe for a mother sauce and that recipe needs to take into account the most likely ingredients that will get added to make the final dish (game instance).

I've been playing games in this genre long enough, and got my hopes raised high enough by the pre-beta and early-beta chatter, that I expected at least a small but solid step forward. Stardock game folks are obssessed, so I'm not discounting the possibility of them making such a solid advance eventually, but I remain convinced that the biggest underlying problem for the game is that they took a dismissive attitude towards content when they should have been linking their engine design goals to their core content parameters and not vice versa. A given instance of a TBS game is a story for many players; when the overall surface design is a bucket o' kludges, the story is not very engaging and doesn't leave players like me hungry to start a new game the moment that we finish the one we're playing.

Reply #18 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting UmbralAngel, reply 16
i disagree that this game needs lore... MoM had no backstory at all (besides whatever stories you make up about Merlin, Rajak, etc)... and that game was great!

So Elemental should focus on making the game fun to play before worrying about stupid crap like story. At the end of the day the most popular games in the world have no story, story is not a necessary feature for games, if you want story read a book or watch a movie. If you want a good story, well then you will have to write it yourself since I haven't experienced a good story in 5 years.
End of UmbralAngel's quote

I did not play MoM, so I can't comment on that, but some games do not need lore, they have settings which makes the world understandable... For example, there is no need for lore in civ games. There is some need for lore in games like GalCiv2, but it has more than enough inside. The same is probably true for MoM, but not for this game. In HoMM, for example, it is very easy to see that it is a fight between good and evil. In games like Armored Princes there is a good story line which goes alone with your game. In this game I feel like in vacuum without understanding what a hell I am doing and why. I feel like I am playing an over simplified civ clone with removed historical setting and thus without understanding of the goals.

Reply #19 from Elemental Forums Top

MxM111,

Here let me spell out you objetive in elemental - Survival by any means necessary for you and your people.

You define what survival means to you.

I think that rest is trial and error since much of the interface is not in the manual but these forums have helped me fill in the gap there.

Reply #20 from Stardock Forums Top

How about that companion book "Destiny's Embers"?

Does reading the book provide some background lore to the game world?
End of quote

  Yeah, I read the book. He's no George R.R. Martin, but he's ok. It does add that sense of lore missing in the game. While I will agree that lore is not needed in a captivating game; I think that any little bit thrown to us rabid dogs in game would have been a nice touch, especially since they do have a book published. It jsut feels better to be immersed in a games "atmosphere" from start to finish...

 

Here let me spell out you objetive in elemental - Survival by any means necessary for you and your people.

You define what survival means to you.
End of quote

 No you don't... not really... I'd like to survive by blasting my enemies to ash while I eat there souls... but every game I am forced to get better weapons & armor... sure as sure doesn't feel to me like I have a choice. Heres' a quote from one of my Imbued Heros' from my last ridiculous game moments prior to becomeing dragon chow...

  "Master... I humbly request aditional Elite warriors; your corterie of Imbued Channelers can not bring down those wandering Dragons with magic alone..."

(plz note- I refuse to play on any setting other than ridic/ridic ^^)

Reply #21 from Elemental Forums Top

Well some people are victors while others are victims,  you decides which you will be.  I only let game mechanics get in the way as much as a road block does.  If I need to park the car and cross the parade on foot, then it takes me longer to get to my destination but the road block does not prevent me as much as it hinders my progress.