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Do You Care About Lore?

Fahdis

Member
Lore is super important to me. Anything deviating from the main game's crux of the story is literal betrayal of the narrative unless its a Reboot. Then I don't care.
 

KàIRóS

Member
Not really, no matter how good the story or worldbuilding is, if the controls and mechanics are boring AF I'm probably going to stop playing, it's a big bonus if done correctly though, like with Trails/Kiseki as you mentioned.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Nope.

I skip through all cut scenes in games unless it's Mass Effect where you got to read or listen to some of the shit to pick the answer you want.

Out of all the time Ive played Fallout or ES games, I have never read any books or computer logs where they give background info or create fictitious stories to increase the game's lore.
 
I especially like it when lore is built up and cashed in on for a game that doesn’t even necessarily need it, like Mortal Kombat.
 
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I used to be. There hasn’t been a franchise that’s gotten me to care in years. Metal Gear was my highlight, other than that I’m mostly skipping cutscenes for the gameplay. If I’m interested in what I see, I’ll YouTube a synopsis after I’m done.

If I wanted to watch a movie I’d watch a movie.
 
I love lore in anything as long as it isn't shoved in my face. I tend to stop to smell the roses in my games a lot and usually take the time to read all the stuff the developers decided were important enough to make legible. Sometimes you can piece together some pretty cool shit just by paying attention to the surroundings.

For example in Xenoblade Chronicles 2:
When you get knocked down below the cloud sea to the land of Morytha, it becomes evident the world isn't what you thought it was. Upon some exploration, you can see road signs on the highway. They are US Interstate signs. Looking up the interstate in Google shows the sign is in Texas, near Houston which means the space elevator known in the game as the World Tree is located at or near the Johnson Space Center. Also of interest, the Blade named Dhalia (rabbit girl with giant boobs) is described by NPCs as sounding sophisticated, like ancient humans. Dhalia is basically a caricature of Dolly Parton and has a heavy southern accent.
That's some pretty interesting lore discovered from a couple background elements most players probably wouldn't care so much about.

Games that naturally build the world up using background elements and pickups, leaving it to the player to bother finding it if they want to. Billboards, in-game literature, exposition occurring in the background I can chose to stop and listen to or not.

Games that shoehorn in hours of verbal exposition constantly squaking in my ear forcing me to learn in detail about everything I could have gleaned from just paying attention to my surroundings are kind of annoying.[/spoiler][/spoiler]
 
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Paltheos

Member
Depends on the context. I get together with a few of my friends a couple nights a week for game night over teamspeak, and there's usually lore in the games we play but I couldn't give less of a shit about it. Even in games I've played a long time, like Risk of Rain 2, which Steam tells me I've played for over 800 hours, I just don't care about the lore.

If the main appeal is lore, like in most RPGs, then I'm sure as shit watching. That's part of the appeal. Otherwise though if it's not something I'm playing specifically for story, I'm not paying attention unless the game pulls me in, which is not a common occurrence.

This is something I've changed on over the years. I used to gobble everything up. I remember reading every log entry in Metroid Prime, pouring over the entire encyclopedia provided at the start of Star Ocean 3. I've gotten allot picker over the years. Stuff soft fed to me like in Dark Souls is more palatable, but it's not something I often seek out.
 

rkofan87

Gold Member
Eh, depends.
Some lore is interesting, some lore is interesting but poorly delivered (*cough* long text files *cough*), some lore is uninteresting, some lore is interesting but doesn't appeal to me...
this if i have to read it no thanks read to me or i will skip it.
 

NinjaBoiX

Member
Not at all, no.

I actually find it kind of distracting to be honest, having these little scraps of information scattered all over the game design. It can get really annoying when you just want to play the damn game!

I do like a well told story though, with actual cut scenes and dialogue. As long as they’re well judged and not overly intrusive.
 

Robb

Gold Member
I definitely enjoy it and feel it ads a lot to most games. But I’m not sure I’d say I care for it a lot in terms of continuity. In most cases I wouldn’t care if something major changed ‘just because’ from one game to the next as long as the lore within the one game I’m playing is good/great.
 
When the director knows how to mix short story cutscenes, in-game atmosphere, good gameplay, everything around tells you about the lore, then yes i am interested.

Two extreme examples are the masterpiece Silent Hill 2 and the Devil May Cry series.

A game where you have to stop and ride a horse for minutes to chat superfluous things, go to smoke weed, cutting your in-game experience, is a great, easy/cheap/amateur way to do storytelling.

Videogame isn't movie, u have to experience differently than movies. With videogames u have a chance to explore the lore around you, its a different beast from cinema and people will never understand that...

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Those directors need to study Silent Hill 2 to know how to tell a story in a video game. cutscenes are the least important thing.
 
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Cyberpunkd

Gold Member
So a good case in point of why a Japanese role-playing game like Trails / Kiseki franchise appeals to me. I've been a fan for about 10 years or more I just love all the lore and detail in the kiseki series. To this day I can't even think of another Japanese video game that has gone on as long as Trails, which started about 15 years ago, and still has an overarching storyline that hasn't been finished yet. It's amazing.
Great it appeals to you, for me jRPGs are incapable of carrying a good story due to terrible tropes of pondering to young school students.
 

SenkiDala

Member
...it's OCD to be interested in a game's lore? You think you're the only one who cares about lore?

What are you talking about bro?
He's just being condescending.

I do care about lore and I dunno any gamer around me who doesn't.

"I like to know the plot of the game I play, I am OCD", oh God what bullshit you can read nowadays.

Next thread "I wash my hands after I piss, I'm autistic" ?
 
The older I get (42) the less I seem to care about anything pertaining to the world building within games. I tend to gloss over reading “files” or listening to clips and just want to play. Where as when I was younger, I’d spend most of my time looking in every nook for details. Some of this is because I don’t have the time to care, but some of it is because it’s never really that interesting. So often the characters and stories have so little narrative weight that it isn’t worth the investment.
 

Wildebeest

Member
If a game seems to have some sort of mystery I want to understand then yes, otherwise no. Dumping lore on me will not make me care about a game alone.
 

Mister Wolf

Member
Yes. My favorite 2 RPG series are Xenoblade and Falcom's Trails series. Both have a continuing storyline throughout the sequels.
 

Soodanim

Member
Out of all the time Ive played Fallout or ES games, I have never read any books or computer logs where they give background info or create fictitious stories to increase the game's lore.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but books and computer logs aren’t the only parts of FO/ES that are fictitious
 

The_Mike

I cry about SonyGaf from my chair in Redmond, WA
I'm the guy that spams skip on all cinematics.

KV7wf9g7.jpg
 

kubricks

Member
Of course... it depends?
1. I don't need too much of a story for STG or FTG or Beat'em. I just need good mechanics.
2. If it's the kind of games I cared about the lore, "show not tell" please.
 

Northeastmonk

Gold Member
VG have changed so much. It isn’t about the first cathode or vector lettering guiding us to a whole new world anymore. We aren’t witnessing the microprocessor display something that hasn’t been done before. We accept it because they’re still making something fun, look better or play better. So what happens when you aren’t reaching for your VR headset because you like it the way it was? It’s all how you define “lore”. Focusing on lore has always been a big part of VG’s if you believe lore gives something a purpose to exist.
Lore to me, can be as simple as pilots who have different personalities (Star Fox) going after a single objective or exploring the rich stories of the world (Witcher/Skyrim/Fallout). It doesnt have to be deep or convoluted to be worth the mention either. You get what you want to. A lot of games can be completed without having to do 100% of everything. You don’t have to sit there reading books in Skyrim to enjoy the entire Skyrim experience. The developer has to make the objective or the journey have some sorta meaning, some sorta purpose of existing. Even in The Last of Us you figure out bits and pieces of a character to have it matter when something goes wrong.

Darth Vader wouldn’t have as much of an impact if you weren’t aware of his legacy. If he would have just shown up, there wouldn’t have been much to go on. You’d think another Sith had entered. With how generic fantasy gets sometimes, having a good lore matters. Even when we had beautiful pre-rendered PS1 graphics, the story was told with the setting. Caring about the world, the characters, or the art was up to you. To me, lore is allowing you to dive deeper, to maintain empathy for whatever your character might be trying to accomplish.

Back in the arcade games had to look cool, they had to be fun to play, and that was it. Adding anything else was purely optional. It’s also a way for IP’s to sell TV shows, manga, and etc. Cup Head for instance did this. It has a TV show that has way more content than the video game it’s based upon. I won’t sit there and watch the show, but I bought/played the game.

This also makes me think back to Mortal Kombat and reading the screen while the game wasn’t being played. It gave the game a lot of value by simply explaining what the characters were doing.
 
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It's entirely dependent on the franchise.

I'm absorbed in story rich universes like Deus Ex, whereas I think lore in boomer shooters like Doom are a complete waste of time and resources.

There's the odd franchise that will have a mostly mediocre premise but I'll still be heavily invested in its lore. Resident Evil is a perfect example. The journal at the end of RE8 that provides a massive lore dump will get me excited as fuck regardless of how over-the-top and ridiculous the franchise's plot is.
 

D-ray

Member
Really, depends.
Personally, I focus more on the gameplay rather than the lore when playing video games, but that doesn't mean I'm not interested in it.
Usually the "lore" part of a game, is the one I explore once the game is finished, and if it captured me more than it was intended (Penumbra for instance).

However, the "continuity part" of the lore is probably what interests me the most. You can fill a game with tons of informations and stuff, but it doesn't feel like a "real" world if you don't let it live outside the player's eyes.
Seeing characters and environments change over time is probably the best way to create the illusion of a living world.
Like I remember how cool was to see in games like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. certain characters move from one place to another, die, or even change through the course of the games of the franchise.

The lore is cool, but very few games (that I played at least) carefully created the illusion of a fantasy world necessary to fill it with it.
 

KungFucius

King Snowflake
If it is presented well then I like it. If I am forced to read text files then they can go fuck themselves.
 
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