RPG Writing Hall of Infamy

[Maxie]

It wouldn't be a stretch to claim that the Codex consists largely of moderate to rampant storyfags, with the rare but vocal exceptions like Sheep and the like. The majority of Codexers, to put it bluntly, enjoy them some good ass story in a game, giving gameplay specific narrative purpose and direction. A cursory glance at the routinely released Top Games Ever lists kind of validates this point, with PST hogging the podium despite being rather questionable as a mechanical challenge.

Like moths drawn to a flame, role-playing RPG gamers will invariably choose to buy/pirate games with story, therefore I find it vital to properly bully out of existence the stories which are objectively shit. Whether or not it's yet another deep&mature navel gazing, or some asinine cinematic experience chock-full of laughably bad scripted sequences, or perhaps simply a janky game with the wrong sort of hammy dialogues - bad writing exists.

If story-heavy RPGs are to be played far and wide, let them be stories which do not insult the player. After all, reading a book is always the superior option. It takes some good ass game writing to make a decent enough person put away reading a book in favour of playing games.

In this here thread, you people say which games are written bad enough to warrant a lifetime industry ban for the authors, possibly with excerpts for all of us to laugh at (and to reminisce).

 

[Duraframe300]

Emil Pagliarulo

 

[RaptorRex888]

Dragon Age 2 - It was the beginning of the end for them.

 

[Sentinel]

I've learned that you can an safely ignore any retard that compares videogame writing to book writing.

 

[Martyr]

Dragon Age 2 - It was the beginning of the end for them.

I have to disagree on this one.
I'm not talking about gameplay, dialogue options, romances, combat etc. but about the story itself, which imo was far superior to Dragon Age Origins or most other Bioware games tbh.
Dragon Age 2s plot about turmoil in one city, church vs mages, potential threat by a possibly hostile race inside the walls of Kirkwall, Hawke going from rags to riches and of course the serial killer subplot was much more enjoyable than DA:Os standard evil monsters threatening to extinguish mankind, zombie village, dwarven caves etc.

 

[Sigourn]

I don't want masterclass writing; inoffensive is all I ask. The issue is that a lot of videogames try too hard and the writing is so poorly done it is offensive, e.g. Bethesda games.
For instance, imagine playing Fallout, but all of the jokes are not funny, all the interesting moments are not interesting, and everything that is thoughtful isn't thoughtful. It would be maddening. That's what happens in Bethesda games. This is also what happened to me with Baldur's Gate and, from what I saw of Baldur's Gate 2, the trend is still there. A stark contrast with Icewind Dale. How I wish Baldur's Gate had been the hack and slash dungeoncrawler, and Icewind Dale the quest focused RPG. Add turn-based combat to it and I would be so down for it.

 

[Jarpie]

Pillars of Eternity.

 

[S.torch]

inoffensive is all I ask.

Any writing that is not good, is not inoffensive.

 

[Sentinel]

Pillars of Eternity.

2

 

[hivemind]

planescape torment

 

[Dodo1610]

I have no idea which ape wrote ArcaniA but he has to one of the most retarded people on earth. Just listening to the dialogue made feel sick.

 

[Glop_dweller]

...the writing is so poorly done it is offensive, e.g. Bethesda games.
For instance, imagine playing Fallout, but all of the jokes are not funny, all the interesting moments are not interesting, and everything that is thoughtful isn't thoughtful. It would be maddening. That's what happens in Bethesda games.

That's an offensive joke in itself. Bethesda knows nothing of Fallout, and had nothing to do with creating it—cannot comprehend it. Bethesda made FO3 & 4, and that is already as you describe in your hypothetical.

*The offense is that now most people use the name Fallout to mean FO3 or 4.

 

[Sigourn]

Any writing that is not good, is not inoffensive.

I would have you define "good" writing but that is subjective. By inoffensive, I mean "serviceable". The bare minimum. If Fallout is a Ferrari and Bethesda's Fallout is a car that is missing one wheel, then serviceable writing in a Fallout game would be a car that takes me to point A to point B without issues. It may not have air conditioning or heating, but it's good at what it is supposed to do.

Baldur's Gate writing is full of jokes. They are meant to add flavor, but I just don't find them funny. "Sorry, I have better stuff to do" may not win any awards for videogame writing, but it certainly beats the autistic cringeworthy jokes you see in Baldur's Gate that break the 4th wall. It's serviceable. It's inoffensive.

EDIT:

Here's an Icewind Dale joke that really made me laugh, for instance.
It reminded me a lot of Peep Show, and it sounds like something Mark would say.

 

[mondblut]

Anything full of faux chaucerian thee's and thou's.

 

[mondblut]

It wouldn't be a stretch to claim that the Codex consists largely of moderate to rampant storyfags, with the rare but vocal exceptions like Sheep and the like.

Joined: Feb 10, 2017

These people are called mondblutians, new kid. Not "sheepians".

 

[MajorMace]

which games are written bad enough to warrant a lifetime industry ban for the authors

the question mark is barely there

 

[Jacob]

If story-heavy RPGs are to be played far and wide, let them be stories which do not insult the player. After all, reading a book is always the superior option. It takes some good ass game writing to make a decent enough person put away reading a book in favour of playing games.

Those rpg cyoa gamebooks aren't exactly masterpiece, you know. Now, between disposable entertainment that consists of writing, several choices, and stats, vs disposable entertainment that consists of graphics, gameplay, music, writing, and stats, I'd pick the latter. There will always be offensively bad offerings from the developer, but fuck off with this "gamez shouldn't have stories at all lol" crap.

RPG is a dead genre anyway, why do we care. Have sex xD

 

[Nortar]

I could not force myself to play Element Space mostly due to atrocious plot and characters behaivor.
There were other flaws too, but I believe I could have looked past them if the overall writing was not making me cringe all the time.

 

[JarlFrank]

It wouldn't be a stretch to claim that the Codex consists largely of moderate to rampant storyfags, with the rare but vocal exceptions like Sheep and the like.

Joined: Feb 10, 2017

These people are called mondblutians, new kid. Not "sheepians".

excuse me who are you again?

lurk moar

 

[Lemming42]

Flogging a dead horse with most of these, but each deserves a place in the Hall of Infamy.

Dragon Age. Every single character is fucking boring as shit. All-star voice cast featuring Claudia Black, Kate Mulgrew and LIVING LEGEND Tim Russ put a lot into the performances but there's just no salvaging it. World is utterly banal LOTR-knockoff crap, and I don't care about oppression of mages or whatever it was. Archdemon main plot is completely unengaging. Gets worse in DA2.

Fallout 3. We leave the vault that nobody ever enters or leaves, having previously entered it with our parents without anyone noticing, and set off into the world to give the people clean water, despite the fact that all settlements seem to already have clean water and everyone's fine except two dickheads who sit outside major cities. The Enclave want to start the purifier, and because we also want to start the purifier, we must stop the Enclave from starting the purifier, so we can start the purifier. During this epic quest, we get the ability to put modified FEV into the water to kill everyone so that the robo-president can take over, even though he kills himself after giving us the FEV because we tell him he's mean. Finally, we heroically enter the chamber and are reduced to a pile of radioactive goo, which the BoS then rescue, leading us to wake up days later unharmed.

Final Fantasy VII. Makes no sense with the original English translation, makes even less sense when you look up what's actually meant to be happening. Sephiroth is one of the most boring villains in history, and he's up against some pretty tough competition from the FF series alone, which has previously featured antagonists such as some guy we met once who's turned into a demonic mutant for no reason all of a sudden (FF1), a guy we meet in the last 10 minutes (FF2), a green thing that literally just shows up at the very end (FF3), and so on.

Mass Effect. Like Dragon Age but every character is actively irritating instead of just boring. First game is unspeakably dull, subsequent games are outright retarded. The occasional promise of an interesting sci fi world never pays off.

And I know this is the lowest of low-hanging fruit, but Oblivion. What the fuck is going on? Every single line of dialogue, every single story beat in quests, every single location, every single character, it's all completely nonsensical.

Also want to give a special shoutout to the way Morrowind handles Daggerfall's endings. No, saying that every possible ending inexplicably happened simultaneously which caused time to become nonlinear and resulted in actually none of the endings happening is not a good way to wrap things up. They might as well have just begun Morrowind with a neon sign saying FORGET ABOUT DAGGERFALL. FUCK YOU.

 

[hexer]

I play both video games and read books but would never compare them.. totally different mediums.
Why did you have to write that books are superior to video games on a video games forum?
You could have just written real life is better than video games and be done with it.
Don't be a snob, accept that people find different things amusing.
It would be dull if everybody would enjoy the same things.
Chill out and let people live and enjoy however/whatever they want.

 

[Reader]

Why did you have to write that books are superior to video games on a video games forum?

Maybe because nowadays some fags are ready to put on pedestal their sacred cows for 'great writing' only?
Look, i expect that the game will provide me some form of a challenge. It is the game after all.

 

[Horton]

+1 Dragon Age 2

 

[S.torch]

Why did you have to write that books are superior to video games on a video games forum?

Maybe because nowadays some fags are ready to put on pedestal their sacred cows for 'great writing' only?
Liook, i expect that the game will provide me some form of a challenge. It is the game after all.

What are you? a child? If you only care about the "game" then what about playing with a hasbro? Not story, not thinking, not reading, only playing

 

[HeatEXTEND]

poe
tyrany