Monday Night Live: Not the Protagonist

It might only be a slight overstatement to say that Oblivion is widely regarded as one of the most atmospheric games ever made. It’s been cropping up again recently as people start to talk about the best releases of the year, and it’s a title that raises some significant points about what gamers actually want.

When you’re gallivanting around Cyrodiil looking for amusingly-named objects and admiring the fronds of grass, you experience a much more significant sense of exploration than can be found in many similar swords-and-sorcery titles. The richness and gentle originality of the environment give you a paradoxical sensation: a feeling of purpose, and the knowledge that you could quite willingly go anywhere or do anything you want.

The words “sandbox” and “freeform” are now largely just nonsensical buzzwords whose meaning has been warped by over-use: we had to drop “freeform” from our descriptions of Determinance because people believed it meant that the game was like GTA. I wish I was joking.

Truly freeform gameplay allows the player a certain adaptability, and should be derived entirely from the environment. Thus, the great sweeping landscape of Cyrodiil and the odd social politics of its towns make for a great setting: lots to see and do. But Oblivion doesn’t want to be freeform.

It’s when you come across an Oblivion Gate for the first time that it all starts to go wrong, because the game then reverts to the eternally dull paradigm of a hero out to save the world from certain destruction. All sense of being a wily cog in a gigantic and beautiful machine is lost, because it becomes clear that you are the centre of the universe.

There’s always the get-out clause that you don’t have to close the Oblivion Gates, but they’re not going to go away on their own, and so they sit there, marring the landscape and damaging the atmosphere. Every time the sky darkens, you’re being reminded that you’re not playing “properly”.

I would be significantly more interested in playing a game set in a similar sized game-world which had a lot more randomly-generated events, and a lot more immersion. Perhaps every city could have a ruler with their own motivations, and the ability to direct their army to do certain things – that would be the only component of the “over-arching narrative”, and the rest could be a complex rabbit-warren of scripted quests and entertaining random behaviour. In short, it’d be nice not to be the protagonist.

A brief foray into the world of Oblivion mods hasn’t provided what I’m looking for, and since I’m not into rideable dogs or being able to cast a spell which imbues the victim with an insatiable desire to find the nearest pair of callipers (both genuine mods), I’m slightly at a loss. If I could make an Oblivion mod with no effort, I would create one where an NPC takes up the missions of the main quest for you, and you can chose whether to aid him at any point or not.

A lot of gamers, and I include myself in this, play a single-player game to experience its universe and the personality of its designer rather than to feel powerful in some way. I don’t read Ulysses because I want to be Leopold Bloom. Surely it’s time, as the industry grows up, to try some other forms of involvement rather than simply wish-fulfilment? Isn’t that why gaming attracts and creates geeks?

Part of the problem is the old “violence” debate: “How come the only thing you can do in this game is kill people?” With player characters who are inherently active, go-getting, monster-slaying types, there’s never going to be any room for any other kind of interaction, and that makes them more likely to be a generic hero. I was interested to read that a lot of effort has gone into Mass Effect’s dialogue system, making me anticipate that game perhaps more than anything else which has been announced for the somewhat beleaguered 360: maybe that will offer some kind of alternative.

I’m fascinated by games which allow for manipulation, or playing the system in some way, as I think that relies much more on being inconspicuous than on leading from the front. You have the obvious things like EVE, where players quite happily dupe each other out of actual money, and the alliance system in Defcon, but I think something interesting could be done in this area with AI: the satisfaction of being utterly duplicitous to your allies in Civilisation still hasn’t been matched.

When games start letting you play sidekicks, advisors, scheming adversaries or passers by, then things might start getting a little bit more interesting.

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This entry was posted on Monday, December 18th, 2006 at 11:08 pm and is filed under Monday Night Live. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

9 Responses to “Monday Night Live: Not the Protagonist”

1. malakian:

   § December 19th, 2006 at 12:30 am

   Word! When I first played it i thought jee, it would be fun to be able to be the poisonous influence over this vampire lord of the town, and make him sacrifice all his people to General Zod. I just think with such a huge concept as oblivion i’m always drawn to what theyve left out. I found the quests boring, the peoples reaction to terrible deeds boring, even the combat boring (though the physics was nice). KOTOR’s sub missions were so much more exciting, and that game was totally linear.

   Here’s hoping I can wreck marriages, start an italian elf only gang and take part in some interesting gambling minigames in the next one.

2. Paul:

   § December 19th, 2006 at 12:45 am

   It would just simply be more fun if you could choose the level of significance you have in the world.

   Although it is quite funny knowing you’re the hero and then spending your days trying to jump on top of a particularly slidey rock while hell literally ramapges across the world.

3. malakian:

   § December 19th, 2006 at 12:54 am

   Bloody slidey rocks. I want more people in the towns, too. Varying amounts. LOADS NEAR CHRISTMAS!

4. shaun:

   § December 19th, 2006 at 11:09 pm

   I’d have to disagree somewhat. While you do make some valid points, Oblivion definitely leaves you the option to determine how much of an effect you have on the world. Nothing forces you to close the gates, nor do anything in that game. You can rampage, you can be a bad guy, you can join whatever association you want in the game, play as a vampire, be a thief, assassin… I mean the possibilities are nearly endless.

   Not to sound like a fanboi miscreant, by any means, but I think you overweigh the “Save the World” theme where it’s just the main goal.

   Some may say that leading you in a “linear” path to the gates is forcing you to partake in such activities, but this is merely there to keep a solid and visible path for people who are unable to figure it out on their own.

   You say boring and unoriginal, I say “easy to follow, more fun to stray”

   Just my $0.02

5. shaun:

   § December 20th, 2006 at 2:24 am

   .

6. Paul:

   § December 20th, 2006 at 10:38 pm

   Sorry, Shaun – you got caught in moderation there.

   “Nothing forces you to close the gates, nor do anything in that game.”

   Well, that’s true, but to me the gates strongly *imply* that you have to close them because they break into the coherence of Cyrodiil so much. They look like big horrible monstrosities, and nobody ever closes them if you don’t, despite the fact that they’re so obvious.

   Why does the central quest have to be something that wrecks part of the fun of being in that world, if you can just leave it alone? Why can’t it be less obtrusive?

7. shaun:

   § December 21st, 2006 at 1:28 am

   Well, let’s put it in perspective, shall we?

   Sure, it’s a bad thing. The portals are ugly and obtrusive, and don’t go away… But that’s the main drive of the game. You can do whatever you want, but you really should do something about the portals, and the underlying problem…

   What’s the point of having a bad guy, and a problem in the world if it’s not painfully obvious and something that drives attention?

   I mean, if the gates were unobtrusive and you never noticed them, you wouldn’t care enough to want to do anything, let alone even inquire as to what they were.

   “Hey, that rock’s glowing… what’s up with that?”

   “Oh it’s nothing, just an interdimensional portal to some demon land… we’ve got it under control, go on your way…”

   The point in Oblivion, much like TES3 (Morrowind) is to gain fame & fortune in the world, through whatever means necessary.

   By no means do you have to close the gates at all, and you’re right in saying that they don’t go away if you don’t, but that doesn’t change the fact that the storyline, and the defining problem are but a mere speck in the scope of what you can do in that game.

8. Paul:

   § December 21st, 2006 at 1:40 am

   “You can do whatever you want, but you really should do something about the portals, and the underlying problem…”

   That’s exactly my point – this feeling that you “should” do something about them. To me, the point of freeform gameplay, is not to feel like you “should” have to do anything.

   I think you could quite readily have an unobtrusive main quest – say if the game were set in the context of a human vs. human war which affects the entire society. A player who feels noble and has a desire to “save the world” could bring about a resolution to the war, whereas someone else could just accept the war as part of society.

   It’s harder to accept the Oblivion gates just as a consequence of the world they’re in, because they by their nature they are so unworldly and have an extradiagetic feel.

   I loved the “main quest” in Wing Commander: Privateer (Ian’s going to laugh at me now because I always bring this game up for no good reason) because…drum roll…it was actually pretty hard to find it when you were playing the game. You’d just take a normal mission and then something weird would happen. You could quite readily play that game and not know there was a “storyline mission” and I loved that about it, because it helped the atmosphere no end.

   Also, how awesome would it be if this was actual dialogue:

   “Hey, that rock’s glowing… what’s up with that?”

   “Oh it’s nothing, just an interdimensional portal to some demon land… we’ve got it under control, go on your way…”

   I’d LOVE to play a game with that ethos – the people of the land don’t want you to save them: they’d much rather you went to the pub!

9. shaun:

   § December 21st, 2006 at 3:27 am

   Heh. Fair enough.

   Off to the pub with me.

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