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4/27/2016 10:56:38 AM
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Souls/borne storytelling vs. Destiny storytelling

A lot of people originally heaped praise upon From's breakout RPGs for their minimalist and open-ended storytelling (among several things). I mean, sure, the cutscene for the Bell Gargoyle was entirely unnecessary, but otherwise, From uses minimal cinematics, and instead puts the bulk (if not all) of its written narrative into item descriptions and the occasional character interaction. That's fine, even if, from what I've experienced so far (I can't get past aforementioned -blam!-ing Bell Gargoyles, and am currently focusing on the Capra Demon) it's just a smattering of obvious descriptions - about functional stuff like weaponry or herbs or whatever - with very little actual world-building. What little world-building there is seems to be a collection of proper nouns plucked from thin air and strung together in some irrelevant little tale. Just like Destiny. So many items in Destiny are exactly the same. They'll throw random names or factions or events at you and expect them to mean something. They tend not to. Sure, Grimoire readers may connect the dots and understand more than the rest of us, but I'm sure Bungie is perfectly aware of how flawed an idea it was to put the bulk of the writing somewhere other than [i]in the game itself[/i]. This is, of course, disregarding Destiny's generally pointless, uninformative, and frequently tedious cutscenes. So let's ignore what Bungie gets wrong and focus on that shared method between Souls and Destiny, and why the hell From gets more praise for it than Bungie. I don't know, maybe I had a point earlier with the functional descriptions in Souls, compared with Bungie's attempts at poetry or badassery in many of their descriptions. What say you lot? Also, I don't know how to tag threads about Destiny [i]and[/i] other games... Is it #destiny, or is it #gaming? I imagine I'll just run into mostly fanboy responses in you-know-where.

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  • Having read all of the destiny Lore, and all of the dark souls lore, having really taken a look at the story that is blatantly presented in both games I feel that I can say that Destiny tried to do what Fromsoft does but implemented it horribly, with a world that isn't built for any sort of environmental story telling. The Story in Dark Souls is told to you by the environment, NPCs, and Item descriptions. All of these provide context for actions, and give you a great sense of what's going on, why it's going on and whose involved by basically straight up telling you. [spoiler]For instance in dark souls 3 I figured out that Aldritch ate the remaining Gods of Anor Londo before I even read his item descriptions and boss name. Because A) I spoke to Hawkwood until he started repeating, and B) I paid attention to the changed design of Anor Londo. What really fermented what Aldritch did was when I found Gwyndolin's chambers empty, except for an over turned chair with some black sludge around it. [/spoiler] Destiny never did anything like that. "Go kill the heart of the Garden" why? "THE DARKNESS" That was the extent of the in game answers. As for the lore well, all the cards say is "What ever it is the vex found that the only logical solution was to praise it as a god, now that is truly terrifying." Okay how is that relevant to what it is and why we have to kill it? It's powerful and in the hands of the bad guy, can't we capture it? Do anything else then send a one guardian against an army of vex? The same race that's known for wiping out entire fireteams of legend? We're never given any reason beyond "It's bad so kill it" Dark souls spoilers ahead [spoiler]I knew Gwyndoline very well from the first game, he was the God of the moon and punishment, hell I served him as a blade of the Darkmoon. I also know everything he did in order to try and keep the peace, he had to hide the fact that gods had abandoned humanity, because he still believed that his father's Plan to save the age of fire would work. So when I found out that Aldritch had eaten my favorite character, you bet I cared! Destiny never did that![/spoiler]

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  • I think most peoples complaint with Destiny's lore or story is that its not in game. That you have to go to the APP or the website and read about it.

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    • Edited by Mute Spittah: 4/27/2016 10:22:30 PM
      There is actually a few big differences between the two. 1. All of the dark souls stuff is in the game, and the lore references stuff in the game- I don't have to go outside of the game to look at the dark souls lore. It's all in the game. In addition, the lore actually talks about stuff in the game. In destiny, the lore refers to great concepts that are totally absent from the game. The corrupt hunter yor? Nowhere in the game. The ahamkara? Not in the game. Everything in From's lore references things you can encounter and see. Did you just read a passage about the Witch of Izalith and Her chaos flame? You get to see the flame (and its effects) in game, and you get to fight the Witch's daughter. Read a passage about the ancient dragons? There are a few scattered through the game, as well as their descendants. You won't read a lore passage about some obscure powerful enemy that no-one will ever see. 2. From's lore comes from the source you want to read about- Want to find out about the King Ocieros? Then kill him, and get his soul/weapons. Each will add to your knowledge. Want to learn about the hunter yor? Good luck. His weapon lists minimal details, and there is no way of knowing what ghost holds info about yor (unless you go out of the game). Want to learn about the twilight gap? Then keep playing random activities until you find its associated items. Everything in destiny is random. Even if you could view the lore in game, it is so nonsensically scattered that you would be hard pressed to learn about any one topic.

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    • Edited by SpongyMallard7: 4/27/2016 9:51:11 PM
      Here's why Bungie gets a lot of flack. 1. They said Destiny was going to be an epic game that could rival Star Wars or LotR. We all know how that turned out in vanilla. 2. Bungie had a huge reputation for making great games for years. 3. Broken promises and over hyping. Everyone knows that Dark Souls/Bloodborne expects you to figure everything out. They also are known for having little to no story outside of the item descriptions. People end up being surprised when they find out the games have very rich and deep lore.

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    • [quote]I imagine I'll just run into mostly fanboy responses in you-know-where[/quote] You mean here? But on-topic, I think Bungie's lore would have had much better reception if the grimoire cards had simply been in the actual game. That was one of my favorite parts of several different games was museum-style menus or interactive levels where I could goof around and learn more about the setting if I wanted. Forcing me to play on my phone to learn the story is a great way for me to get distracted and end up doing something else instead.

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      • They both need work honestly. Don't like how ether games are handled story wise.

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      • Souls is intentional while Destiny was rushed and misplaced and slightly getting better (TTK). Really despise how their handling their story with the grimmore. It such a backwards, nonsensical second screen experience. Could have released a damn book at least. Hope it dies eventually.

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        • Edited by wackfamily: 4/27/2016 3:43:17 PM
          You're comparing a book to a blank piece of paper

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        • If you mention a game beside Destiny it goes in #Gaming. If you mention just Destiny it goes in #Destiny. Anyways, Destiny was obviously trying to replicate FromSoft's brilliant story telling methods.. But they didn't do it right. Not only did they put it all [i]out of game[/i], but honestly their descriptions were really lackluster, and only hidden grimiore, like Dead Ghosts, gave you any real lore. And, they're biggest fault, I think; they gave us [i]too much[/i] information, and info [i]on the wrong stuff[/i]. They didn't explain in the least what the heck the Heart was. Heck! I still don't even know how killing those 3 Minotaurs killed it, or what significance killing it even had! Meanwhile, you're only at the Capra Demon. You aren't going to get lore until later on. But basically, Dark Souls is a story half told, and that's the glory about it! It gives you "this is how it started, this is how it ended, make up the rest". It gives you a sense of realism. You aren't going to know every single event of history just by talking to a few random folk. They gave us just enough info to know about the world, yet still conjure up our own theories about this & that. And they give you a way to look at extended item descriptions [i]in game[/i], so more people are willing to do it. I know the significance of every Soulsborne ending I've seen, and I don't know this because the ending outright says "this is what this'll do" I know because I read item descriptions. And that's a glorious feeling. I know the ending's significance not because the game said it, but because I understand the world. That being said, I actually love Destiny's world! If they showed it better, and it wasn't FPS, I'd probably still love Destiny, but alas.. (and of course, I do love Dark Souls! <3)

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        • Destiny was advertised as having an amazingly story. However, they chopped the game up into little pieces. The Taken King was here from the start. We never got it in Y1 because IT WAS CUT FROM THE GAME. Dark Souls, on the other hand, just has straight up lore. Sure, it doesn't have a major story, other than lighting the First Flame again to continue the Age of Fire. Of course, that story is over. The cycle will repeat itself, since the Flame cannot be extinguished.

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        • Because Destiny was advertised as having rich story full of wonder that according to one of the devs: "Could sit alongside other franchises like Lord of the Rings and Star Wars". And when the game released it didn't have nothing of what was promised regarding the story, this is what happens when the original story that was longer and more rich was cut because it was too cheesy for the bungie/activision bosses. Dark Souls was never promoted heavily by having a story, that's why people never got some sort of expectation regarding the story and in the end are happy as how it was implemented.

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          • DONT...... EVEN...... COMPARE THEM....... -_- [spoiler]Dark Souls beats Destiny by miles and miles of storytelling. Didn't mean anything harsh [/spoiler]

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          • Different companies, different games, different expectations from their playerbases.

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          • Edited by Urban Shade: 4/27/2016 5:59:12 PM
            The item descriptions and the location tell a story. Look up the story of artorias and sif. Or go back to the roots and learn about the story of the demon astarea. [spoiler]the feels man[/spoiler]

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          • Here's the thing. Destiny you have to use an app or website to see the story. Darksouls you got a pretty good idea of the main storyline and history without specific details.

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          • Have you beaten dark souls? Dark souls 3?

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          • Destiny is a pale comparison to Souls related storytelling, especially since at least FromSoft has the lore accessible in the freaking game.

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          • Destiny was considered a failure in its story telling as it failed to progress it's story and tie it together neatly. Vanilla destiny ended leaving us with more questions than answers about the darkness and the traveler. Crota and House of wolves seemed like an unimportant side show until taken king kinda tied them together. As of late there has been no meaningful story progression at all. Grimoir is the only meaningful in depth lore but it exists separate from the game. Dark souls gets its praise for storytelling because the environments in the levels themselves can tell a story. The items you pick up and read help clarify the story you perceive. While not everything is fully explained there exist enough breadcrumbs to lead you along to draw conclusions.

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          • Nope. Destiny literally dosent have a hidden story. I read all the grimoire cards all they're all over the place

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          • At least you're well written. I'm not gonna talk about world building because DeS and DaS have the advatage of "time in" as it were. I will talk about item descriptions, lore, and storytelling though. From doesn't make us go to some foolish app to read some foolish grimoire card. That's dumb, and it breaks immersion SO BAD... Who thought that was a good idea? With from games it's all there. Literally all you have to do is pull up the item and read the description. In from games, there's also meaningful dialogue outside of the cutscenes. That doesn't seem to happen in Destiny. Eris might've said some cool stuff once... but nothing particularly insightful. "Mine. Not yours." Dafuq kind of item description even is that anyway?

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            • Dark souls has as great or as little a story as you want. If you pay attention, you catch all kinds of things, be it from npc's,item descriptions, even the environment itself. This goes hand in hand with the difficulty of the game,in that if you don't pay attention to enemies and their attack patterns, you won't get very far very fast. The game rewards fast thinking and an eye for detail. This in turn helps to immerse you better into the game world itself. I suppose you could say destiny tried to pull something similar, but its presentation just was bland. Yes, you'll catch mention of am interesting name here or there, but to have to leave your game breaks the immersion that dark souls had got almost perfect. If half of what destiny put in the grimoire was actually in game, it would have had a great story. I read a lot of them, and they're good. The ones on oryx are really interesting. Along with destiny itself, the potential was amazing,but it failed epically to get anywhere close to its potential.

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            • It's how they were marketed in my opinion. Destiny was marketed as a space loot shooter with a story. Souls games are marketed as exploration RPGs which essentially put you in the world and you have to find out what's going on yourself instead of everything being told to you. Then again, I don't buy Souls games for the story but I would like to have more interactive dialogue like the Witcher 3 did. I would like to see more story in both of them but Souls games have a reason for their 'minimalistic' approach where as Bungie had no excuse with Destiny

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            • They are a similar style, however Destiny falls short on their take of it. The first major issue is that the majority of the would-be lore is not actually within the game. The decision to make the grimoire only accessible via the app or website significantly hurt the in game story for lore crazed fans. The item descriptions are similar to dark souls, however they are often much more cryptic, and are always shorter descriptions overall. And the NPCs, unlike dark souls, lack any story to them whatsoever in-game. You know Oscar and his quest just from completing the turorial, but you would likely never know of ikora Rey's story without looking it up in the grimoire. It's a poorly executed attempt at the same style of worldbuilding

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              • That's because Bungo advertised Destiny as a "cinematic" videogame that would "rival Star Wars and LotR"

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                • Destiny makes you access an app to read most of the story. Dark Souls has it all in game.

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