Game Stories

 

sourced from(https://jerryjenkins.com/plot-of-a-story/)

The topic of this week's reading is that of stories in video games. This reading was very interesting for me as I love getting into the lore of a video game and reading background information about a character or a moment in the story that is not fully shown in-game.

When people usually hear of video game story they tend to not care as they are not there to watch a movie but rather they are there solely for the gameplay. But a good story can uplift the gameplay even higher especially if the gameplay itself is already subpar.

A good example of a good video game story is the story of the 'Warcraft' franchise. The story started with the very first RTS game 'Warcraft: Orcs and Humans' and then continued to evolve with the next games that came out such as 'Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness' and its expansion pack 'Beyond the Dark Portal' and then the story evolves onwards to 'Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos' and its expansion pack 'The Frozen Throne'. Up until this point the story of Warcraft was pretty linear with little to no backstory more focusing on current events rather than past ones and also you played as the main Warcraft characters such as Illidan Stormrage, Arthas Menethil, Malfurion Stormrage, Thrall and Tyrande. 

But with the release of the MMORPG 'World of Warcraft', back in November of 2004, you could create a character in the Warcraft universe and continue the story and learn some more about the backstory of the universe through gameplay rather than having to go buy the books.(https://www.gamesradar.com/world-of-warcraft-timeline/)

A good story is a simple story, you have a good guy, a inciting incident, the climax and then the end.

WoW's story was effective for a very long time because of its simplicity, you were just any old adventurer stumbling upon a dungeon filled with treasure and you go in encountering a very powerful enemy(looking at you C'Thuun).

But lately, WoW's story feels more like the MCU where you are the main hero and everyone calls you a champion and you are the only saving grace of the Warcraft universe.

A lot of players feel very disconnected from the storyline right now as it has left the traditional RPG story and turned itself into a 'bad guy of the week' type of thing.(https://www.pcgamer.com/world-of-warcrafts-latest-cinematic-is-a-narrative-disaster-and-players-hate-it/).