BLA1NE wrote:I find it strange how people confuse plot or backstory with story, in video games. You watch a movie, someone asks you what the story is, you tell them what the characters have gone through during the movie, no? You don't tell them that "there were dragons hundreds of years ago and they all killed each other and... and then these characters are in this movie." So why is it that "story" in a video game is that there were dragons hundreds of years ago? To me, the story in Dark Souls is what you're DOING the entire time. Your journey from the Asylum through Lordran and finally out of the Kiln is quite a tale. How is that NOT a story? It's almost irrelevant that there were dragons hundreds of years ago when your own present journey was so epic.
And in that regards, if we're going to compare Dark Souls with other RPGs on the merits of its story, I'd say it stacks up more than adequately, and playing it in Dark Souls is much more epic than other RPGs because of the intricate gameplay. Killing bosses, to me, is a story. Killing bosses in Dark Souls, to me, is a lot more epic than doing it in other RPGs.
You can dig around the plot and backstory on all these other games all you want, and Dark Souls has more than its share of that too, but to me the story is what you do.
I agree with you fully Forum Hunk. Everyone who says Rpgs require an elaborate storyline seem to forget the origins of Rpgs, table top games. In table top Rpgs there was no freakin story to follow, the adventure was you and your friends creating characters and playing through an imaginary world with damned dice rolls. What you experienced and did was the story! Dark Souls isn't a perfect evolution of those games but it's the closest thing you can get to that experience in modern gaming.
I just don't understand why we consider these digital "choose your own adventure" books like Mass Effect Rpgs when a game like DkS that simply creates a world for you to tell your own story in is not. Don't get me wrong I have nothing against ME games, I just think we have a warped definition of Rpg and similarly bizarre expectations from a game labeled Rpg.
Edit. Can I also add...if that guy is really a Bethesda employee I'm kind of disgusted. I played the **** out of Skyrim and really had fun, I have plenty of complaints about it but I generally liked the game. However the story sucks a big bag of ****. Some of the side/guild quest lines were written well but as far as the main plot, it was terrible. In the first few main plot events you find out there is a big bad dragon who wants to eat the world and prophecy says you're gonna kill him and save everyone. Not only is it unoriginal but there is no suspense, you're told in the opening cutscene the freakin dragon born is going to save the world then 2 hours later you're told you in fact are the dragon born. Some plot! Then don't even get me started on the abysmal story telling, I'm so sick of being TOLD the story through dialogue in a GAME. I want to play the game and experience the story, not be told it through hundreds of lines of dialogue from 30 Npcs voiced by 6 voice actors.
/Rant