Reading is boring AKA I don't need your shitty backstories

This is number one offender in video games. Most of written lore rarely adds anything of substance to it, usually we're just looking for a punchline needed for our objective instead of being truly involved (in some cases the game points out the objective for us after "reading" a text even if we didn't really read it at all) and in most cases we usually can foretell how a written piece is going to end judging by its tone.

Plus it pauses the game and removes you from the whole experience. Even in The Witcher 3, unless I really really had to, I had never read anything there and I felt it was never worth it.

Reading in video games should be replaced altogether by different mechanics. In the case of The Witcher 3 maybe if you could read them in-game without accessing that clunky menu it would've been different but I'm not singling The Witcher 3 out. It's usually a horrible experience regardless of the game. Maybe if it was implemented via Snap feature on the Xbone that would kind of work like a second screen, that would be more tolerable, but as it is, nah.

Do you think there are good texts to be found in video games in a traditional form? In what ways do you think it's best to replace this convention?

No, reading is good. I love RPG stories.

I don't think reading those things are usually necessary for the game so it's there for those who want it, otherwise just ignore it

I agree, but I also know theres people that actually enjoy reading the lore. I kinda like the way TESO did their quests where the npc actually speaks the quest details to you and you can skip it if you want, but theres also tomes all over the place that you can read for more indepth lore.

Has anyone ever read all those 2-9 page books in Oblivion and Skyrim? You have issues or too much time if you did.

Reading in video games is not good for me. And I can't help it. And this is coming from an avid reader.

I agree that video game stories should be more passively told, leveraging the strengths of the medium, but I also disagree with your specific points.

Story games make me go nite nite. Only a select few can keep me engaged. But then i have to stay dedicated to them in fear i might forget my place. I usually save them for when i got nothing else to play.

I skip all the books in RPG games because I can't be bothered with it, never been into story books at all to be honest.

The best implementation of written lore in games is short one or two sentence pieces of information at various points, if possible tie it into a quest or something in the game.

They could do more like Xenoblade Chronicles, when you talk to people they have a chat box above them but you can still walk around while they talk. Its makes talking to people funner cause you can start the conversation and start walking away as they talk, kinda like in real life.

They got this from MMOs. MMOs like WoW and others do it pretty good. You can even read quest while walking, riding, flying etc. Its great for gameplay cause you can do emotes and say stuff during the events.

After the cassette tapes in MGS V, every back story should just be audio files that I can listen to while I play.

Written lore is amazing as a supplement to the game but it's not a replacement for story telling or lore building with visuals and/or audio in the game. I understand back in the 80s and 90s and even early 2000s when games were limited by technology and production values that they would have to build the world with written text in a variety of ways, but it's 2015 and we don't have those limits. Even small indie studios are able to drive a narrative and world building without resorting to tons of written text.

Planescape Torment would give you a nervous breakdown.

The Elder Scrolls has some of the best lore out there. Really deep.

BOO your topic TC. Reading is only dumb to people who get lazy and don't like extra back story. I love putting on subtitles and ready the conversations.

The best book was ABCs for barbarians.

@FoxbatAlpha: no....never.....

ok yes...in morrowind many moons ago. the berenziah saga was quite good as i remember it. ah one quiet evening in the library at vivec...good times :)

best thing to do it make it optional. in witcher 3 i think the quest would move on once you got the book/note for example. you didnt have to read it usually. the books in elder scrolls are optional. the entire backstory of metroid prime is optional etc.

i like it though. im currently reading the extra manuals for pillars of eternity. good stuff.

Depends on the game, if the game is one of my all time favorites, I read everything there is to be read in it. Other games its mostly meh.

I remember the old Resident Evil games did it good. You would find a researchers notes etc. It was pretty awesome reading the stuff from them to find out what happened or what went wrong in their situation. t ever oo much or anything, i always enjoyed reading them.

I think you are glancing over a bigger issue - the clunky menu.

It seems you don't want to do much with it , so reading small infos and bios is not the problem here.

You still want to read then , but not with the games menu , rather with the stupid snap feature on the Bone.

Why not just get the guide book?

Worst lore is the shit they put in officialised fanfiction which then counts in the games, and then when you play the game you don't know what's going on because "hurr durr you should have bought the shitty novels."

Keep it in the games or don't bother.

That explains your love for Nintendo, when the games are exclusively made for small children you never have to worry about taxing whatever grey matter you have.

As for the topic creator I don't mind reading because I can fucking read. I don't understand people who have a problem with reading, how do you live in your life without it? How many things go past you in life because you couldn't or didn't want to read them?

Reading is a basic thing, it's such a non issue about games you might as well have said that the shrink wrap they put on games isn't always recyclable, that's how relevant this is to the field.

@Jaysonguy: Its true, its why i love Nintendo games so much, they dont bore me to death, they give me what i want, they give me hardcore gameplay. The topic is not reading in general mate, its reading in games and how those said games present themselves in the the subject.

@mesome713: Precisement. It's not about reading in general, it's about reading in video games which to me is usually poorly implemented and adds little to nothing.

I am not the biggest fan of written materials but I believe that written notes and background stories give you this feeling that this is not just a level but a place, where people used to live or still live. It's also optional, so I don't see the problem. Normally I don't read journal entries about creatures in RPGs but sometimes I do read notes and books (not always... depends on mood).

In Thief 1 and 2 however (especially 2), I read almost everything I could find and it was interesting to find and read secret letters (sometimes found inside baskets) that gave you more info about characters and their relationships with each other. Sometimes some secret location is also mentioned in those notes or a code to open something, then you can write that code in your notes menu with keyboard (no automatic updates). Made the game more immersive.

If the game is not fully voice acted and tells the story via text (Planescape: Torment) then it doesn't bother me but in today's era I expect something better. Divinity:OS found a right balance. It wasn't fully voice acted but instead of telling you what is happening right now through text (Pillars of Eternity), it showed stuff via scripted events in Real Time.

I read a few of the shorter ones (2-4 pages), but once I figured out the ES lore sucks balls I gave up on it. The ES universe would have been better off if Alduin had won and effectively rebooted the world.

Reading lore can be quite interesting in some games.

for TES games I would peak at the books once in a while but never feel compelled to read them all

now in games it isn't so much optional reading that's bothersome, it's too much voice recorded dialog sometimes

Actually, Chrono Trigger did that long before MMOs. In Chono Trigger, when you talk to NPCs, you can freely walk around or walk away from them... It's little touches like these that made Chrono Trigger.such a timeless classic.

@Jag85: I always forget about Chrono Trigger, that game did so much its insane.

I loved reading in penumbra and amnesia games, also it was decent enough in outlast too

audio tapes while i play are a great idea, a la mgs v when it comes to superflous shit

but otherwise im a much bigger fan of 'show, don't tell'

I like written back story as long as it's not a necessity to read it. For instance, a lot of the AC games have chunks of story that feel like they're missing... because character bios are in the written database. That being said, I've played games where the written backstory actually enhances the game. Lost Odyssey and Bravely Default come to mind. Both are enhanced beyond the sum of their parts because of the written backstory.

Ouch. I'm sensing some anger issues here. What did Nintendo ever do to you?

I dont read the codec's like in Halo or Mass Effect. I'm sure those take time to write, but I just cant be bothered.

If I'm reading this right, you're extremely proud of your ignorance. Good for you, I guess.

Reading actually doesn't bother me, the part where you find the story in Metroid Prime and a Souls game, I actually like that shit. In the case of the Souls games it needs to be changed from item descriptions.

Wall graffiti is something that needs to die though, not because it can't be used correctly. But, because developers are super lazy and stupid with it.

@Dire_Weasel said:

If I'm reading this right, you're extremely proud of your ignorance. Good for you, I guess.

But you're not reading this right.

Hence you're a pleb.

:<

And I actually hold a master's degree in English Literature with Arts.

Keep making a fool out of yourself.

If the game has a plot that genuinely interests me I won't mind reading the lore. Just depends on the game

Agreed.

Reading literature = good.

Reading video games = bad.

Face it, in general video game writing still has a LONG way to go to catch up to other mediums. When I was a kid I used to somewhat get into the "lore" of videogames, now I can rarely tolerate it. Generally I can live with well written and well voiced cut-scenes - if the story is well written I can take at least a passive interest. But it doesn't have to go far off the tracks (or into video-game tropes) for me to pretty much want to skip everything and get to the gameplay.

Nothing wrong with reading.

Except for this

Witcher 3 does a really shitty job with its books. If you're going to do books do what Skyrim does. Let me carry them, store them somewhere and read them in game and not through a bunch of menus.

souls games having stories? good one. i agree about wall graffiti, that and recordings are really fucking dumb. also, video game people need to stop writing down their passwords and leaving them in emails or post it notes.

He used the f word, so you know for sure he's a serious grown up

This. It would make it a lot easier to listen to a tape whilst in combat.

I'm not really following why this is a problem? Just about every modern RPG has full voice acting for the entirety of it's played content. The story side-content you read is never more than flavor texts, and you can get just about as much from of the story elements with or without reading them. No decent game forces you in any way to take part in that material.

Scary as it may sound, some people actually enjoy reading and finding bonus elements, especially when they enrich and reward exploration.

If it's backstory I don't see a problem with it.

Reading such things in a video game is not for me though. I can read an article or forums...or a magazine or a book, but a backstory for a character in a game....I dunno...I just don't enjoy it.

Speak for yourself

Morrowind is probably my favorite game of all-time and the lore and dialogue in that game is enough to span multiple novels.

I've also always loved reading the books in the Elder Scrolls games. Just immerses you more in the world when you learn more of its culture and folklore. It's entertaining.

There's also plenty of reading required in old school JRPG's like Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VI & VII, Secret of Mana, etc but that doesn't make them any less great.

I think it's great personally that you can pick up some books/read files on computers etc. to dive into the game world. It should never be necessary to play the game but it's a good thing for sure.

Yeah, those are good examples. I read stuff in Amnesia and Amnesia: AMFP as well. It was well written and made the story a lot more interesting.