Loregy.com

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Games could learn a lot from Web 2.0.

Ars Technica had an interesting story today about Grand Theft Auto 4 you can check out here.

To summarize, here’s how it works. In GTA3 and the upcoming GTA4, when you’re in your car you can listen to the radio. Here’s what’s awesome though, it’s not muzak. It’s not elevator music. It’s actually music you’ve heard before, enjoy, and might actually own. If you play GTA3 or GTA4 on your PC then it gets even better, as one of the radio stations becomes your MP3 directory. So yes, you can steal cars and cause havoc to your own soundtrack. I personally prefer the Benny Hill theme song. The big news is this. In GTA4, if you hear a song you like, you can hit a button and it’ll link you to a site hosted by Amazon.com where you can buy a DRM free MP3 of the song. This kind of feature is amazing, and it made me think of how you could apply this to game lore.

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The second episode of Blizzard’s official podcast was released and has a great interview with the head of all their lore (Vice President of Creative Development), Chris Metzen.

You can check it out here:

Linky McLink

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While a lore master may almost always be a storyteller as well. A storyteller is not necessarily always a lore master.

So what is the difference? What makes a lore master a lore master and a storyteller just a storyteller?

The answer lies in what they’re creating.

Where as a storyteller creates a story with characters and dialog, a lore master takes one further step back. A lore master first creates a world, then a story in that world, then characters for that story, and dialog for those characters.

“How can a story have no world?”, you might ask. Well, it’s not a matter of the story not having world, as much as its just that storyteller didn’t have to create one. Take a romantic comedy for instance (not that I have anything against romantic comedies). The story takes place in our own world. We already know all the rules and quirks. For the storyteller, the world has already been pre-made.

Here’s an example I like to use; think of a story-based amusement park ride. The ride goes along the tracks. The audience only sees what the ride’s creator wants them to. If you could take one step off the beaten path, you’d see that it’s all just a facade, there really is no lore, no depth. A lore master, on the other hand, creates a world where the people are able to get off the ride and look around. The audience can explore.

That word is important, “explore”. That is what differentiates an audience’s experience with a lore master versus a storyteller. With a lore master, the audience can explore. The more they dig, the more they find.
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I recently stumbled upon an interesting article by Chris Avellone describing a day in the life of the lead lore master (Chief Creative Officer) of Obsidian Entertainment.

The article can be found here.

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As I discussed in a previous post, game lore and game mechanics are connected hand-in-hand, so to discuss one while entirely ignoring the other would be a fallacy.

With that in mind, when discussing game lore, one can reach a point where the lore has been pushed so far that the game mechanics can no longer be able to support it. This is what I call a “lore wall”.

Note that this “wall” is not a road block, but merely a boundary that should be acknowledged when it is crossed. One can go beyond the wall, but an entirely new game must be created at that point to support the lore.

A good example of this would be the factions of World of Warcraft.
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All too often I find myself debating lore with people from one of two camps. In one camp we have the lore-nut, “All other game elements must curtail to Lore!” brigade. With the other camp, it’s the game-mechanics, lorelol, “all I want to do is click on things, lore is irrelevant” group.

To the lore extremists, I have to remind them that this is not a book, it’s a game. Lore, mechanics, platform, at the end of the day what is it? It’s a game and that is what everything else must curtail to.
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