…to explain to the player what just happened in a game. If all cut scenes were removed from BfA and SL the average player would have no idea where the narrative is and why/how the plot is progressed.
If you look at the cutscenes from Starcraft 1, they accomplished two things:
They set a tone for the content you were about to experience.
They gave a more detailed account of what you just experienced in game.
It was your actions and the playing of the content between scenes that pushed the narrative. No cut scene was required to explain.
So if I have to rely on my game play being interrupted every 20-30 minutes with cutscenes feeding me information I cannot gather from gameplay, then there is a problem with how the narrative is being integrated into the game.
Relying on cutscenes and novels to relay in game narrative is symptomatic of poor writing and implementation. Cutscenes, cinematics, and out of game novels should only offer greater detail of game narrative. They should not be needed to progress it.
Also, chaining narrative progression to character power level progression is not conducive to a persistent world setting. If the narrative cannot be progressed and experienced without a player having to accomplish very specific tasks tied to it’s power progression only the end game type gamer can experience the narrative without having to rely on out of game sources.
This isn’t Blizzards fault. People run up to quest… talk to NPC for half-a-second and hit the accept button. There’s even auto-accept addons and the speedrun leveling addon does it for you. The cutscenes and voice acting is the only way they can tell the story.
I’m not arguing against cutscenes. Only that they shouldn’t be devices for explaining the narrative, only embellishing details.
You’re not wrong. But if players want to do that, then fine. Not everyone is interested in the narrative. But to remove the narrative from gameplay and rely solely upon cutscenes is a terrible way to push a narrative.
It’s not all done through cutscenes though. The cutscenes are usually part of the final act of the covenant campaigns.
I agree the way they could do the story could be improved though. It’d probably end up being more cutsceny like FF14 where you have to stand there and watch everyone monologue until you can proceed.
Vanilla and TBC had no cut scenes. Wrath had a handful, but they were not necessary to the narrative, only embellishments on what the player had just experienced.
I played FFXIV for all of maybe 20 hours and this was in the top complaints of mine. I can’t play that game anymore and that’s a big reason.
Gotta love the 9.1cinematic where Sylvanas kinda hand holds people of 9.0 events, lol…
Blizz over-complicate things and then spread it thin across various media that I agree, the writing team is stinking it out and this is a good reason to prove that.
I played Vanilla and TBC and you had no idea what was going on. It was like ooo cool Illidan said “you are not prepared!” in a cutscene. Players didn’t even really care though. WoW was just a sandbox game then. WOTLK is when they started ingame cinematics and your encounters with Arthas were voiceacted.
I quit after WOTLK, but I saw after they started voice acting and using cutscenes way more often until it became normal in the game.
It’s one of many symptoms. I can only address one at a time. I’m getting there.
I’ve played from Vanilla and I knew exactly what was going on. It was even readily apparent that we would be fighting the Burning Legion again in Vanilla from all the content hints around the world. I have screenshots of my original toon standing at various locations throughout the world that pushed the narrative just by existing.
TBC made it very clear to the player interested in the narrative as to what was going on through in game content. I’m not exactly sure how you weren’t able to follow in those expansions.
Well I mean, you’re not wrong in a lot of cases today with the retcon/cut and paste delivery of narrative given us.
I’d say this more so for books imo. Like the fact Calia dies in a book and becomes undead in a book is so weird when they pretty much make her the stand in leader for the forsaken. Then there’s the whole Garrosh thing in WoD and his escape. Shadows Rising did a better job of not making the book necessary so think they’re learning which is good.
I agree. But I think also what contributes to this particular issue is that Blizzard allows novels to be canonized, but then retcon canon in game to foist narrative at will.
Just like with game content, if Blizz is going to have novels be canon then fuiture content needs to be written within the narrative of canon period, no matter how “cool” content would be that contradicts it.
I still remember Afrisabi telling us how he thought it would be “so cool” for players to be able to go to AU Draenor and see thousands of orcs lined up to enter the portal in to Azeroth. Never mind lore and continuity, let’s fubar everything with time travel and alternate universes because it’s “cool”.
Cutscenes in game can be quite useful for story telling purposes. Telling most of the story through mediums that are not the game and then expecting people to be able to follow/understand what it going on in the story, cutscenes or not, actively detracts from the story in game.
Stop over reaching with narratives. We got the entire narrative of Wrath with very few cutscenes, and none of them we re required to understand what we experienced in the game. Even the final cinematic after killing Lich King was nothing more than embellishment of detail. The overall storyline was progressed through in game play.
If the story is so over reaching that you have to pause game play to tell it multiple times per gaming session then perhaps the story is just that, over reaching?
I agree with you 100%. I liked that they added cut scenes at the end of a raid, just to add a little more visual texture to what you just accomplished. However, they have moved from that to using them to tell the whole story vs us questing through the story.
