Dragon Age 2 - Gone Gold!

JuliusMagnus said:

I prefer the backstory writing of the Morrowind era Bethesda.

I'm not saying their dialogue, quest writing or code writing were the best. But I'm talking about the backstories (books, placenames and immaterial culture), the story behind the geography, the culture and the history.

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The word you're looking for is "lore", and yes, Bethesda has done a fantastic job with the background lore in the Elder Scrolls series.

Which makes me wonder why their character dialogue is so mediocre.

writing a history book and writing a novel are two entirely different skill sets that i'd say most authors will not be as prolific in both. i mean they could hire good writers i suppose but often games with good writing have many scripted sequences or choice of them. bethesda always goes for the ultimate sandbox approach which makes going that route not really possible. also having so many branching storylines and choices can lead to bugs which some people have no tolerence for dispite the oneofakind experiences see--troika and obsidian.

JDR13 said:

The word you're looking for is "lore", and yes, Bethesda has done a fantastic job with the background lore in the Elder Scrolls series.

Which makes me wonder why their character dialogue is so mediocre.

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Something like that. Morrowind's quest dialogue wasn't horrible but it wasn't great either. Oblivion's was terrible.

And yet both of them, Morrowind especially, have excellent lore.

DoctorNarrative said:

And yet both of them, Morrowind especially, have excellent lore.

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Well it's pretty much the same lore. Oblivion didn't change anything afaik, and added very little.

JDR13 said:

Well it's pretty much the same lore. Oblivion didn't change anything afaik, and added very little.

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It has some new stuff which is actually very interesting. The idea of Nirn (the "earth" of TES) being a realm of Oblivion (maybe)... the idea of the "dragon born" being the physical aspects of Akatosh, stuff like that. Shivering Isles had some good ideas as well.

Also the general idea they had of hell creeping into a normal fantasy world was good, they just didn't act on it effectively.

Ovenall said:

I keep hearing the complaint about tired Bioware writing and story. Who does writing and story better than Bioware?

I don't get it. I've played lots of rpgs, but I've also missed many of them. Yes, Bioware has clichés in their games and some stuff gets to be a pattern. But all crpgs are pretty much vamping on clichés.

Can someone tell me who they think does better writing than Bioware? I'd like to hear opinions on this. Bioware is far from perfect, but IMO they are the best out there.

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Consistently? Only Obsidian to be honest. Beyond that, the developers that did a better job than BioWare are either gone or have developed too few games to be called consistent. People are simply being overly negative.

As far as PB goes I'd say they are really good at crafting worlds, including the people that live in the world (unlike Bethesda). The people generally seem realistic and fit the setting/context. However, PB is not all that great at writing stories.

curious said:

writing a history book and writing a novel are two entirely different skill sets

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In how far ? I'd like to learn more about your point of view.

It's because history is one of my hobbies (although rather ancient history), and I'd like to write history books about my own fantasy universe one day.

Alrik Fassbauer said:

In how far ? I'd like to learn more about your point of view.

It's because history is one of my hobbies (although rather ancient history), and I'd like to write history books about my own fantasy universe one day.

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The thing is mixing history with fantasy works just ask author called Jim Butcher and his Codex Alera Books. He combined ancient Rome with Pokemon and had a huge success. All from a dare in a forum. I could list other books that are historical fiction.

Alrik Fassbauer said:

In how far ? I'd like to learn more about your point of view.

It's because history is one of my hobbies (although rather ancient history), and I'd like to write history books about my own fantasy universe one day.

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Counterfactual history is an interesting genre in this regard, often lying in a shady area between fiction and historical fact. Many historians take it seriously, though, especially since Railroads and American Economic Growth: Essays in Econometric History (which was simultaneously a huge step forward for econometric history). Even if not everyone agrees with Fogel's conclusions. But that's kind of the point, engendering debate.

I have a BA in History (which I regularly use in combination with a buck to buy a coffee), and yeah, the skillsets are diverse. In general, great historians share with great writers that they can write well. Unlike more internalized forms of human sciences like anthropology or sociology, historians don't tend to write just for themselves and their colleagues. Historian's works, at least the best, tend to be easy to read and comprehend (especially if you have the kind of mind that gobbles up facts), especially things like Landes' Wealth and Poverty of nation or Orlando Figes' many classics (great writer, that).

"History books" is kind of a meaningless catch-all phrase here. It is very different to write anthropologic history like Nortbert Elias did or cultural history like the aformentioned Figes. Then there's stylistic differences in trying to catch all or doing one of those infamous local history things (I'm thinking of course of the seminal Montaillou by Ladurie). But in general, while the writing down takes a similar skill set to some extent, the process where writers have to think creatively and come up with ideas is replaced with historians by months or years of pain-staking research. I think the skill set you'd need as a novelist for convincing historical fiction is to understand this, to comprehend the way historians have to find out specific details, figure out how everything slots together. If you don't, you'll likely create a pretty illogical, inconsistent world.

Hm, yes, I think I begin to understand this … I was rather thinking of the actual "writing skill", but of course you are right when you say that you need "months or years of pain-staking research". Everything else would be not science.

I've been studying several years in Geology/Palaeontology, and so I do know how important specfic research ctually is. I have never, however, did so in the historian fields.
My greatest hobby is still Archaeology, and one learns a thing or two during decades of reading … And it overlaps with History, too …

Especially in Archaeology you need a good and *detailed* research if you want to have a proper outcome of a digging campaign … And of course for a proper interpretation of these findings, too !

I think I'll need what I have learned in these fields for building up my own fantasy universe (which already exists in rough drafts since about 7 years or more ago).

It'll be an interesting learning lesson.

Another difference is creativity: Fictional authors need to be exceptionally creative, or they'll end up writing nothing but clichès.

Personally I do not have the creativity to be truly original when writing. Then again, only a few do I suppose.

You remember that I'm currently writing a longer piece with having the plan in my mind to let it be exceptionally cliché-like ?