Starcraft Manual (Destiny)

by General Battuta, Friday, February 06, 2015, 19:38 (3580 days ago) @ Cody Miller

See, that's where I think the problem is. I don't think the process that Bungie has in place for developing thier games necessarily lends itself to good storytelling.

Bungie just doesn't understand the difference between backstory / setting and narrative I guess.

The manual for the original Starcraft had about 40 pages of backstory. All of it similar to what Bungie has created with the Grimoire cards. You read it and were primed for the game. However, the game actually told a story about characters in that world. The backstory wasn't the focus or the thing drawing your interest, it was merely setting the stage for the game's story.

Bungie simply places too much emphasis on the backstory and setting. I'll bet they write it first, THEN find a narrative to put in it. That's backwards. You get your basic narrative, then you design backstory for the world and characters.

I'd bet money I've just pinpointed Bungie's main problem.

I fucking loved that manual. When we got Starcraft we actually couldn't fit it on our ancient HDD and we had to get our dad to buy a new one. So I spent a couple months waiting for that HDD to get ordered and shipped out to backwoods Vermont, and the whole time I read that manual over and over again.