Stop adding content and do story damnit

[Khrysanth]

While I agree that I would like to see more lore delivered in-game, both actual information (military, scientist, politician, etc.) and also the sensational part-true word on the street versions (newspapers, politicians, survivor notes), I don’t agree that we really need “backstory” on the companies involved.

Let’s face it, here in the real US, you can find countless brands of everything - guns, cereal, cars, computers, etc. They don’t come with history books for their manufacturer. We take these brands for granted. Who here can, without looking it up, tell me anything about Chevrolet, Boeing, Sony, Black & Decker, Colt Manufacturing, or General Mills other than “what they make”?

[StopSignal]

[quote=“Zaweri Runewright, post:10, topic:6098”]Rivet just nuked this thread with truth.
THERE IS TOO MUCH CONCENTRATION ON LORE.
Gameplay before lore, IMHO.[/quote]

I am the kind of person that thinks we should have a general concept of lore, then make the game, make it fun, and then build the lore around it, and make the lore slowly penetrate gameplay until it’s basically both things toghether. But gameplay first.

[i2amroy]

I am the kind of person that thinks we should have a general concept of lore, then make the game, make it fun, and then build the lore around it, and make the lore slowly penetrate gameplay until it’s basically both things toghether. But gameplay first.

Generally the way I look at it is simultaneousness. In order to go into the game something needs at least a semi-valid bit of lore behind it. For companies like Rivtech this can be as simple as a new company the made lots of money with causeless firearms. For things like new bionics there should be at least a valid-sounding piece of information about how they work. (The condenser bionic, for example, draws water out of the air). After that point things can be changed either by someone coming up with a great story idea and then fabricating a bit of explanation behind it, or coming up with some cool lore and then fabricating content for it. The difference, however, mainly lies in how easily it is changed. Things already in-game can only be changed with great difficulty, thus content pretty much always requires at least that little lore snippet behind it. Lore, however can be changed with much more ease until content based on it is actually added into the game. That, IMO means that you can add lore without content, but until it actually gets some content it is still mutable and may be changed in favor of other lore.

[Blackopsman9999]

NS2 has no lore to it almost.
Factorio, has very little as well.

[Shadowchaser]

[quote=“Blackopsman9999, post:16, topic:6098”]NS2 has no lore to it almost.
Factorio, has very little as well.[/quote]

I play Cataclysm for hours on end.

I play neither of those games.

Lore is a factor in this.

[Blackopsman9999]

Lore is just like an easter egg in a game for me. Not needed, nice to have. I would rather have the game be nice than the four items with ninety pages about each atom of it.

[dambuk1]

I like when there is a lot of lore and backstories in-game. I am the type of person that gets bored building bases and clearing towns of zombies, but can spend HOURS just reading random notes, research logs or some kind of in-game encyclopaedia. To me cataclysm doesn’t have enough lore at the moment, it takes 24 hours for me to get bored on one world, because to me there isn’t much to explore, read, know and solve. Then, i go on an adventure, destroying everything in my path and getting really disappointed when i kill “the thing” in three hits .___.
So, to appeal to all types of players, both the lore AND the gameplay need to be improved - so people like me can spend hours gathering random notes or solving the world’s mysteries, while other people can hop into homemade tanks and go battle godzilla sized netherrealm beasts.

[Belteshazzar]

loads of the ‘lore’ is currently in the laboratory computers.

The opening could possibly use a mention of the Eastern/Western Bloc tensions, but aside from that the storytelling is probably best in taking the Dark Souls route in which the picture is hazy, fragmented and delivered slowly over the course of one’s explorations.

Hell, I actually oppose requiring in-depth, explicit reasoning and description as to how every creature works, where it came from, what it wants, ect, ect… because at a certain point one is going to need to accept that even the researchers either had no clue because it was just too damn bizzare, nobody has seen it before, or they couldn’t spare the time to write it all down in between panicked running and reloading.

[dambuk1]

What i saw at lab computers unfortunately doesn’t satisfy me(and i have terrible luck with lab computers shocking me, shutting down or not working in the first place so i only get useless scraps that i already figured out by myself). Although i agree that it would be pretty unrealistic for someone to make a detailed description of “the thing” or other monsters like that, there still isn’t enough information.
The game could use some more newspapers, flyers, survivor diaries, random scribbles made by people on walls and items, etc.
Also i never said that the player should have the means to know EVERYTHING - just that right now it isn’t enough for me.
I think that the best way to satisfy everyone would be putting some newspaper articles or survivor journals that can be read by the player.
After that, fixing the NPC’s and making some kind of ‘plot’ through faction quests, NPC settlements and other “Humanity rebuilds civilization from a scratch” type of things.

[RAM]

It would be nice if lore could be a consideration with every addition. As it would likely be more thorough to respect lore as it happens than to try to stick it in with pure lore updates. If, for example, you decide to put in a book for caseless ammunition recipes, it stands to reason that there would be some mention of manufacturers and the history of such items. putting in a small paragraph about such things on the item’s description, or producing random factoids while reading, or even on the recipe descriptions, might aid in immersion. Conversely, putting in a pamphlet about that company with no recipes, skill gain, or morale benefit could leave a player jaded about the value of looting and not bothering to investigate minor items. It seems to me that working on one without considering the other would produce either a lesser product or a big mess of details to produce all at once and likely not put as much effort into each one…

[Blackopsman9999]

It would be nice not to have useless walls of text thrown at us when learning how to cook a fucking steak.

Fixed it for ya buddy.

[system]

Go home inadequate clone, you’re not trolling currently.

I love little documents and stuff strewn about. Hell I wanted the ability to write my own books in-game. For stockkeeping and such other endeavors like writing stories.

[RAM]

Not walls of text, just comments.

You read “Energy Weapons for the Stupidly Insane”…
Plasma weapons were first adopted by the army in 2023…
Electric discharge weapons were phased out in favour of radiation generators…
Recent developments have seen an influx of sonic weapons used in maritime warfare…
You hear “Wake me up before you go go”. Stop reading?

[Rivet]

[quote=“RAM, post:25, topic:6098”]Not walls of text, just comments.

You read “Energy Weapons for the Stupidly Insane”…
Plasma weapons were first adopted by the army in 2023…
Electric discharge weapons were phased out in favour of radiation generators…
Recent developments have seen an influx of sonic weapons used in maritime warfare…
You hear “Wake me up before you go go”. Stop reading?[/quote]

I rather like this idea.

[system]

Sonic weapons…

Aka the dubstep gun loaded with JB albums. WMD right there.

[KA101]

[quote=“Rivet, post:26, topic:6098”][quote=“RAM, post:25, topic:6098”]Not walls of text, just comments.

You read “Energy Weapons for the Stupidly Insane”…
Plasma weapons were first adopted by the army in 2023…
Electric discharge weapons were phased out in favour of radiation generators…
Recent developments have seen an influx of sonic weapons used in maritime warfare…
You hear “Wake me up before you go go”. Stop reading?[/quote]

I rather like this idea.[/quote]

That particular lore has some problems, but yeah, this seems a decent vector for backstory. Support.

[Khrysanth]

This approach to delivering backstory on companies/technologies? I can get behind the snippets of facts style.

[Paquito]

gtaguy’s trolling.

That said, in terms of priority (and ignoring implementation difficulty), I’d argue :

Game-refactors > bug fixes > content > story

[AseaHeru]

[quote=“gtaguy, post:27, topic:6098”]Sonic weapons…

Aka the dubstep gun loaded with JB albums. WMD right there.[/quote]
They already have those, and they fit on trucks and helis.
They also dont know what they can do at max power yet.
Mostly because noone has bothered to turn off the safety range yet, because hell, they dont need to yet.

[StopSignal]

It would be nice if lore could be a consideration with every addition. As it would likely be more thorough to respect lore as it happens than to try to stick it in with pure lore updates. If, for example, you decide to put in a book for caseless ammunition recipes, it stands to reason that there would be some mention of manufacturers and the history of such items. putting in a small paragraph about such things on the item’s description, or producing random factoids while reading, or even on the recipe descriptions, might aid in immersion. Conversely, putting in a pamphlet about that company with no recipes, skill gain, or morale benefit could leave a player jaded about the value of looting and not bothering to investigate minor items. It seems to me that working on one without considering the other would produce either a lesser product or a big mess of details to produce all at once and likely not put as much effort into each one…

Hate to troll but…

You start reading Playboy. X3