Needs more Richard Kimble: How PoE (Almost) Completely Fails to Deliver on Narrative

First of all: Thank you for your elaborate and consistent post (@ScrotieMcB, obviously).

I do disagree with most of it, though.

I do agree with the FFA loot, to some extent. I could live with a loot system like it was in Diablo I and II; this might be the case, because I only play with 3 RL friends and we tend to exchange loot anyways.

Two points were already explained by Mark/ Rhys: You're no fugitive, so no Javert is needed. People are sent to Wraeclast in the (near) certain knowledge that something will kill them there. And if not? Well, doesn't matter since coming back from there seems to be extremely difficult.
Second is: You didn't know Piety and she didn't know you. You get to know each other a bit on your way through Wraeclast, though, and I find it quite well done.

I would agree on Act II putting out the sun/ helping the bandits, if it weren't more or less useless to make the Forest Encampers hate you. Just grab the next waypoint, back to Lioneye's Watch and trade on. (Like in LoD Act V, when you haven't rescued Anya, yet, but Nilathak has already left - just WP to Act IV) Moreover, they do not know it was you, they're just jumping to conclusions (granted, they're spot on). On the other hand, you're given the quest to deal with the bandit lords so you had to go through the waterfall cave. So ultimately it wasn't really your fault that you activated that thingy. Besides, I don't think there was a plaque attached to it reading "Push to activate Vaal Oversoul and blacken the sun. Also adds funky reverb to all areas." - so you didn't do that on purpose at all.

All in all I must say I quite like the story as it is (unfinished, btw.). It doesn't get in the way like in Diablo III, yet if you want to delve into it, it's there (or rather, is getting more as devs find the time to implement more.) I think in a game like PoE, the story is a nice bonus, but not really needed, whereas in an Adventure, yeah, you'd need a good and consistent story. But you wouldn't play an adventure over and over again.

BTW: The people I play with have no clue about the story in PoE and only know little of the story behind Diablo I - III, even though they all played the games with enthusiasm. The sample size, of course, is small, but it leads me to believe that a great many people don't pay that much attention to the story.

Atmosphere, however, is important at least for me. And IMO, the game has quite some of that (especially Lunaris III, which I don't like per se but do appreciate for its atmosphere).
So for me it'd rather be:
Atmosphere + Gameplay > Narrative

P.S. Would I pay to much attention to the narrative, I wouldn't be able to play a witch. Ever listened to her final words after killing Piety "I love your work, Piety, it was just you I couldn't stand." or something along these lines. Quite a nasty one, that witch.

Aside form what others said here already, if you wanted looting to be made more "realistic" then perhaps wild creatures shouldn't be roaming around with swords and shields somehow tucked away under their skin or taped to themselves or something. A tentacle monster shouldn't be capable of dropping a 50 pound heavy metal chest piece, and those armored knights shouldn't be dropping caster robes.

If you try to make things realistic, then they lose a lot of fun in the process. While I agree adding more story and back story, as well as more story line elements would be great (and they are slowly working in more as we progress with all the letters and such being left around,) but I'd rather the game play come first, and story line be separated and second.

"

Mark_GGG wrote:

DISCLAIMER: I don't work on the story directly, and the guys that do may well have different opinions to me on a lot of this.

I think a lot of the overall ideas of your post are correct - narrative in games is always better when reinforced by gameplay, rather than just put in your way as story to read (although having the story to read for those that want to is good, and I don't think it's bad that people who do read everything will get a more full sense of the overall story.

I particularly agree with Gruest filling a good thematic role, and that there could be more consequences in NPC attitude towards you turning off the sun (although to be fair - they have no proof that's your fault that I can see, only suspicion, so it wouldn't be horribly out of place for at least one of them to give you the benefit of the doubt). I'm all in favour of things like Gruest closing up shop, and also more consequences for siding with a bandit, but this is a game first, and the needs of the gameplay to be fun as a game outweigh the use of said gameplay as a narrative tool - so I don't know to what degree we'll be able to see such things in future.

EDIT: massively ninja'd by Rhys on this part :P
In specific details, you do seem to be pushing for an angle that isn't really there and doesn't really seem to fit - I'm referring mostly to this part:

"

ScrotieMcB wrote:

The Exile is an escaped prisoner. Whether he's trying to do good or ill, we need some remnant of his past (other than the blatantly immoral Piety) to act as a proper foil for our protagonist. Whether it's a revenge story or a redemption story, we need someone to represent the long arm of the mainland law.

The player's character isn't an escaped prisoner. He's an exile. Wraeclast is where he's been exiled to - it's not a hiding place from the law, it's his prison (or more likely his death sentence). They put you on a boat, threw you off near the Wreaclastian coast and told you to swim to shore - and they're happy to forget about you at that point provided you don't show up on Oriath again somehow. So you're a bit off-track on this part, and to some extent everywhere you used the Fugitive story as a comparison (although there are certainly parts that match up).

I'm also pretty sure there's no specific link between your past and Piety - she doesn't so far as I can tell, recognise you at all at first - she calls you 'Exile" because she can tell you are one - because pretty much the only living people still on Wraeclast are exiles from Oriath like yourself. So I think you're also a bit off on interpretations there as well. While not perfect, I quite like the narrative buildup in the relationship between you and Piety, which to some extent is shown in gameplay - at first you're of no consequence and she ignores you completely, then seeing you made it past Brutus she acknowledges you enough to give a quick one-liner as she bars you from following - not bothering to deal with you in any real way. Later, as you become a more consistent thorn in her side, she actually fights you, but isn't worried enough to see the fight through to the end. The her story culminates in you having tracked her down and getting in her way enough she does fight to the death.

There could certainly be more in-between states, but I think the increasing levels of mechanical/gameplay interaction between Piety and your character do a decent job of reflecting her increasing recognition of you - from "just another exile" through "minor nuisance" and "thorn in my side" to "I will deal with this one personally".

The encounter where Piety blocks your path always struck me as a bit odd. I find it too short an encounter (or maybe fast paced?). Her dialog represents no suprise regarding that you got past brutus.

Path of Exile isn't about the Exile, but the Path.

"

Rhys wrote:

Nice post. One problem though... the player isn't The Fugitive, a wrongly convicted person on the run from the law. The player is an exile, serving his/her sentence as judged by the law. The player didn't wash up on Wraeclast by accident, s/he was intentionally thrown overboard and left to sink or swim as punishment for whatever past crime.

So having a "Javert" tracking down the player doesn't actually make sense within the narrative.

Hmmm. Never caught that on the boat. Me and my poor hearing; I've honestly never bothered to get anything from that talking guy except his general tone. No subtitles.

In that case, I guess the intent needs to be portrayed better. Show the Exile getting thrown overboard. A couple seconds when you make a new character would be enough; nothing overly fancy, just dropping from boat to water, fade to black, fade back up on the shore.

However, I still think using the accidental shipwreck plan is superior. The reason is one of empowerment. Being led to jump off the plank, presumably without some kind of fight to save your life, is pretty disempowering, morose even. But a shipwreck? You're not the one steering the thing; it's on them, not you.

"

Rhys wrote:

We actually really wanted Greust to stop selling items during the Darkness event, but it would be a bit problematic for gameplay (awesome for narrative, though).

I don't think we can take away the loot options now (not that they are live yet). We're committed, for better or worse.

In terms of Gruest, I think it's something the players can accept (Yeena is still there, and Clarissa mirrors Gruest's absence in the beginning of Act 3), and I think the "problematic for gameplay" crowd could be overcome.

In terms of the loot options... yeah, I'm probably not winning that one. My suggestion there: if you have time for it before 0.11.0, is replace the current method with a slider bar that goes from x0 (pure free-for-all) to x5, with no permanent allocation option. Five times the current allocation period should be plenty for most parties to functionally eliminate ninjas, but still works on a part in the back of their minds that prevents the concern from dying out completely. Granted, it's a much weaker form of paranoia/distrust than before, but it's not gone completely and thus is still somewhat effective as a narrative mechanic.

"

Mark_GGG wrote:

There could certainly be more in-between states, but I think the increasing levels of mechanical/gameplay interaction between Piety and your character do a decent job of reflecting her increasing recognition of you - from "just another exile" through "minor nuisance" and "thorn in my side" to "I will deal with this one personally".

And in terms of Piety wanting to fight the Exile, I think motivation is sufficiently covered. However, I don't think the Exile's motivation is equally understandable; why fight Piety anyway? If not to track her down and eliminate her (and the power structure that made her possible), why travel all the way to the City of Sarn? And how to convey that motivation without the game dictating the character's morality?

When it comes to dialogue from the Exile, I think less is more; thus, I think the best way to indicate that the Exile knows a thing or two about Piety's character is to have Piety indicate her pre-existing familiarity with the Exile. This doesn't have to be specified any more than her knowing that the Exile knows her; the rest can be filled in by the player.

That one simple step, and later on, trudging through Lunaris 3, we can imagine the Exile knowing, if not that Piety was doing these things down here, that Piety was at least very capable of doing them. It allows us to fill in the motivation the Exile had in following Piety to Sarn.

"

Yxalitis wrote:

Problem is, 99% of the players couldn't give two shits about the story!

Why?

Becasue this is an ARPG, a game that is played over and over and over again.

Spoiler

This isn't a strong story-driven game, sorry, it's just not.

You refer to Diablo 2, but tell me, did you watch those animations every time you completed an act, or did you just thumb the Esc key as quickly as you could?

Yes, you skipped them, because it simply starts to get in the way of the gameplay.

This isn't Portal, or Bioshock Infinite, or Alan Wake, (whether or not you liked those games is irrelevant), games that you play through once from beginning to end, put aside, then maybe replay a few days/weeks/months/years later.

Path of Exile simply isn't like that, how does the narrative apply when you are loading and running Lunaris Act 2 45 times in a row? Why isn't this bitch DEAD??

I get what you'r saying, and admire your enthusiasm, but to try and use the narrative as an escuse to reintroduce a game mechanic you prefer...no, just no.

What you're underestimating here is the power of memory.

Yes, like everyone else, I skipped the non-interactive cutscenes in Diablo 2 when I felt I could remember them; this meant I watched them all the way through the first two or three times, then skipped, then quit playing for some years, then came back, then watched them all once, then went back to skipping.

But notice what that pattern indicates: I skipped them because I remembered them. Since the narrative was about being brave in a world of fear -- in a world of Marius -- that narrative still had the effect of making my character feel more powerful. It wasn't that the narrative wasn't important, so I skipped the narrative; it was that I had, by that point, internalized the narrative, so I could skip the cutscene without skipping the narrative. I just had to remember.

Notice how you could skip the cutscenes in Diablo 3, yet that narrative was made fun of. That's because the narrative to that game pulls you in two opposite directions at the same time. First, it tells you you're the one, the Nephalim, slayer of demons, keeper of soulstones, and you admit no wrong and are a badass in combat. Second, you can't save Cain, you can't save Leah, Kulle outsmarts you, then Adria, you rescue a stereotype in a sewer barrel, and the final boss is a teenage girl who couldn't hold her own in combat before she turned. The result is that you feel huge contempt for your character, king of the misfits, and an even greater contempt for the villains you vanquish, almost completely undermining the epicness of the achievement. (Considering how mechanically badass the fight with Belial is -- and how for once you outsmart him -- it's really a shame the disjointed narrative is already starting to kick in, making even that fight less satisfying.)

Now do you really have to watch Diablo 3's cutscenes more than once to be infected by its terrible narrative? Of course not. Like it or not (repress! repress!), you remember them, and that colors the mood for all the fighting you do from then on.

Narrative isn't meant to be repeated over and over again. There is a limit to how many times people read a particular book or watch a particular movie. But that does not mean that the narrative for a game isn't important; even a few viewings is enough for you to draw from that world, its themes and its symbols, and integrate them into the play experience.

Ah, true. 'Swim straight for shore.'

The plane didn't crash. Hmmm...maybe it'd be better if it did. I definitely like the idea of us escaping the same sorry fate as those saps in Sarn.

HOLY SHIT THAT WAS ALLITERATE.

Would be pretty awesome if, the first time you return to town Act2, you enter a unique instance instead where Gruest straight out attacks you while shouting about how he always knew you were bad news. You'd get much more eventful talks from the other characters that way, both negative and tentatively positive. Silk singing your praises one moment, suddenly becoming wary the next, selling (Gruest's) stuff afterwards :P

Imagine, after the shock of Darkness, even town(home) isn't safe, Nothing is Sacred anymore D: Playing off the much more eventful exchanges and it can breathe some life in to the Act2 narrative.

The first time I blotted out the sun I was so excited, ran all over the place to see the effects, Act2 NPCs didn't do much, Act1 NPCs didn't notice D: ::sadface::

As for the Boat/Swimming/Shore thing, I'm pretty sure I first picked up on it watching a stream before even playing PoE the first time.. and then repeatedly hearing it in the background over many new characters such that it eventually leaked through. so never had any problems with that ever =/

SECRET INGREDIENT:   WALL OF TEXT!

"

Charan wrote:

Path of Exile isn't about the Exile, but the Path.

Just because I had a bit of a protagonist focus in the OP doesn't mean your winning strategy is to go over-the-top extreme in the other direction.

If anything, there's sort of one and the same; a narrative is a path, or at the very least implies one. On the other hand, saying a game isn't about the protagonist... I mean, sometimes games come close to this -- Bioshock springs as an example -- but even in that game, with all the focus on the world, the lore, the mock villain... the protagonist had an important story of his own, one that made for a really interesting plot twist and one of the most climactic moments in gaming.

Path of Exile is about the Path and the Exile.

"

Charan wrote:

The necessity for narrative in film and movies.

Firstly, love the movie references. Very impressive usage of parallel, although all three have huge flaws (Rhys nailed a few, I'll come back to some others).

Unfortunately, this technique is not really on target. Comparing movies to an ARPG narrative-wise isn't going to end well. Movies, books and other 'non-interactive' forms of storytelling have a structural commitment to first and foremost telling a story. Without the story, you're either aiming for high art (aka wank) or for failure (and some would argue it's the same thing). It is the reason we watch movies and read novels. Sure, the characters can be rich and interesting enough that we swallow varying degrees of bullshit story -- quite a few classics actually rely on this -- but without plot, there's no action. No action, no change. No change, no story. A movie, book, etc -- any form of narrative delivered unto the recipient with no actual interaction beyond said delivery -- relies on its plot.

Path of Exile, like many other games, does not.

Plenty of video-based media can tell a story without relying on plot whatsoever. 12 oz Mouse and FLCL are good examples; if you consider those to have plots, the creators have successfully trolled you.

And similarly, I'm not suggesting too many plot-based methods myself. Loot system? Not plot. Piety knowing the Exile from before, in an unspecified way? Not plot; it doesn't cause anything to change over the course of the journey. The Javert idea? That's a character; I guess a plot is implied, but I don't have one. The Gruest thing is plot. That's about it.

"

Charan wrote:

Narrative in ARPGs: important but not paramount.

A movie, book, etc -- any form of narrative delivered unto the recipient with no actual interaction beyond said delivery -- relies on its plot.

Path of Exile, like many other games, does not. Is it an important factor? Fuck yes. But if you stripped away all story, *all of it*, there'd still be a game. Motivation to play might be far less, but the game would remain. There'd be action; there'd be change.

A game without gameplay is a movie.
A game without narrative is Microsoft Office.

"

Charan wrote:

Narrative in ARPGs: important but not paramount.

In some ways, the narrative of a game is more for the developers' benefit than the players': it gives the devs something to hang their awesome game ideas on, like a mannequin for a designer ensemble. It lets them see their ideas realised in a way that is attractive and coherent. It makes sense. And if a game doesn't make sense to the developers, my god, what hope do the players have?

So our Diablo 2 Marius tale is our example of a good, classic ARPG narrative here, right?

How is that more for the developer's benefit than the players'? How does it let the developers see their ideas realized in a way that is attractive and coherent?

In games, like in FLCL or the Marius narrative, the primary emphasis is to impart a mood or general theme. In the case of Marius, it's the frailty of the standard human, allowing you to stand above them as a superhero... without being "chosen by destiny."

"

Charan wrote:

Why the Exile is not The Fugitive: we're not running away, we're running TOWARDS

I get it, I apparently didn't get canon right. I don't need it explained multiple times.

By the way, the canon on this one isn't that great. Running towards? Okay. Running towards something and away from something else, with varying degrees of intensity? Better.

"

Charan wrote:

Piety is evil, but so are we, even if she's killed more men than cancer.

So what is her place? Simple: she's just the most vile example of why, as bad as we Exiles are, we were RIGHT to tell Oriath to go fuck itself. RIGHT to embrace Wraelcast and its savage ways, because Arteri, Gravicius, Piety and Dominus are the sorts of people now wearing the mask of civility in Theopolis and pulling the strings. The Exile is the lesser evil, and in Path of Exile, that's as close to a fuckin' hero as you're going to get. I think the townsfolk realise this, which is why as begrudging as they are about it, they do acknowledge our achievements. But they know the fourth wall secret: we're not doing it because we're good people; we're doing it for the loot.

Well now we're getting to a mighty specific theme. Unfortunately, I think we're getting there by excluding other possibilities. Is that one possible motive for the Exile? Sure. However, does the Witch's Piety death comment really sync with that... or does it sink in with a motive of envy of power, of actually admiring those who pulls the strings, and thus wanting to kill them and take their jobs?

I feel what you've done here is projected your own personal motivations into the Exile, sort of a "make your own theme." And that is something players should be doing (and a good reason to dislike the Witch's Piety death comment for being too specific). But themes provided by the player are not themes provided by the game itself. The one theme that is delivered on well, before even reaching the first town, is that of, well, exile. What isn't communicated in those first five minutes -- at all -- is the kind of anti-establishment, rage-against-the-political-machine viewpoint you present here.

"

Charan wrote:

People ask, "is there any reason to do the Dread Thicket?" Well, no. No quest, no reward for said quest. So they don't. Tell me that isn't a beautiful microcosm for why the Exile is no hero.

And if they did, they would be a hero? To be honest, it's pretty null. It's not heroic to waste one's time.

"

Charan wrote:

There is one quote from Con Air I think we can take and apply to Path of Exile: "There's two men I trust. One's me, the other's not you."

And yet permanently allocated loot. Go figure.

"

Charan wrote:

No hero means no need for an anti-hero.

Lastly, Les Miserables and its anti-hero. This is the least fun to play with because it's probably the best suggestion. While I said we're not 'fugitives' and no one is hunting us down, the idea of being hunted is a delightful motivator. It's an excellent narrative device for propulsion.

But we don't actually need that. Why? Same reason as above. The loot. The loot and the kill. Oh, so many kills. There's just blood...and a lot of it. The Exile is a spectacularly simple creature, an archetype more than anything.

That's very dangerous territory. You're having player goals (mechanical motivation) and character goals (narrative motivation) completely overlap, which means players who snap out of the illusion ("Why am I upgrading my gear? Just so I can farm faster to further upgrade my gear?") kill two birds with one stone. Making the compelling but different narrative motivation ("They exiled me... but I don't need them") means the player has more resistance to the grind before becoming demotivated.

"

Charan wrote:

The story is the Path, not the one walking it.

The trick is understanding it's not the Exile's story.

Wait, what?

Are you SERIOUS? The Exile is the main character! How can it NOT be the protagonist? How can this BE?!

This is why I chose a metaphor of mannequin/garment/pose. If the Exile were the main character, it would be all three. The mannequin would be the character's personality, the pose would be its class/archetype, the garment would be its experiences. Complete package. When it comes to games, if the main character is the protagonist, the main character IS the story. Everything else is just there to revolve around it and keep things interesting. The plot is just the character moving through the world and the npcs. Don't mistake me: this can and has made for some amazingly good games. I needn't give any examples.

But the Exile's story isn't the point of Path of Exile, because the Exile has no name, is a fairly broad if not blank canvas to begin with and has NO clear motivation at any point in the game. The story is not the Exile but, essentially, how one person being pretty much self-serving can accidentally 'save the day' if not the world. You can hang moral motivation on why we do what we do, and it can be satisfying to know that you've rid Wraeclast of a monster, but if there were no quest to 'kill so and so' and no promise of a reward, there is no guarantee any Exile would do it.

What we have here is a fundamental misunderstanding of the term "protagonist." Here, let Merriam-Webster define it: a leading actor, character, or participant in a literary work or real event. The Exile is the leading participant in the events on Wraeclast over the course of the game. He's the protagonist. Your misconception here is that "protagonist" means "the primary thing the narrative is trying to describe."

But nevertheless, the Exile is the primary thing we're trying to describe. What we're trying to do here is effect the player through his identification with the protagonist, which is essentially automatic by spending the whole play experience controlling him. You know, RPG and all.

Actually, come to think of it, I used the wrong movie symbol for the Exile. The theme we're trying to instill is "They cast me out"/"I'm self-reliant, I don't need them." And just like Diablo 2, we're trying to do it by contrast -- but this time, without cutscenes. So maybe I should have used Katniss Everdeen.

On the other hand, fuck Hunger Games.

But saying that the Invisible Hand of Adam Smith is the protagonist? I mean, how does that even jibe with your earlier theme of contempt for those pulling the strings? Are Piety and Dominus somehow not self-serving? I'm not saying that we need to go to extremes here, but when it comes to major themes, you need to either keep things simplistic, get ready for exposition dumps (Atlas Shrugged, I'm looking at you), or you end up with a confused mess of contradictions like the themes of the Diablo 3 narrative. If PoE is going down this road, you'd need to include elements to make the distinction clear.

"

Charan wrote:

The story is the Path, not the one walking it.

The Exile never stops being a blank slate in and of themselves -- they are, at best, evolving imprints of what happens when you apply survival instincts and greed to a setting that has no time for anyone without an abundance of both.

I think that's misleading at best. The Exile might start out a blank slate -- and probably should remain one, as far as the game is concerned -- but the player will inevitably find themes to write in their to personalize their character internally. You certainly did.

"

Charan wrote:

Better the devil you sort-of know...

I'll refer back to your D2 example here. A very, VERY good example of how to do 'blank slate' narrative right. Of how to make the player character not the focus of the story. The framework of D2's story is nothing short of genius. The cut-scenes have nothing to do with the player character other than they're describing the same journey being undertaken by another, another whom you happen to be pursuing. As far as the player character is concerned, there's FAR less story in D2 than Path of Exile. Blizzard played it safe with D2, very safe. Without that clever double narrative, it would have been really, really unimpressive. The strong setup from D1 didn't hurt either.

Compare D2's narrative style to D3's. What's the first thing you notice? Surely it's the fact that in D2, you were a nobody sucked into what seems almost like a cycle of kill the beast/become the beast. The whole time, you're not sure if you're going to fare any better than the last Dark Wanderer. In D3, right from the start you're some unbelievably special prodigy destined to save the world. Destined. SERIOUSLY. Don't even try to fight it. Here, have another beautifully shallow cut-scene reminding you of how AWESOME the enemy is. The one you're going to kill. Promise. Don't you just feel BADASS? Hey, are you still awake?

Glad we agree on something here.

"

Charan wrote:

Show, don't tell...in fact, don't even show that much.

The incoming Weathered Carvings make it very clear to me that the devs, Edwin in particular, have no interest in turning the Exiles into protagonists for the story they want to tell. What we will be learning much more about is Wraeclast. Its legends. Its events. Wraeclast is the main character of Path of Exile. If you want to hang a narrative on the Exile, just imagine lots and lots of passages about slaughter, getting loot and the occasional obligatory interaction with townsfolk and Significant Figures. Like I said, that's not much of a story and it was never meant to be. The devs have chosen, very wisely, to neither tell nor show the Exile's story beyond the vague set up and the progression through little more than an abundance of slaughter and plunder.

But with the Weathered Stones they have chosen, perhaps unwisely, to tell the stories of these mythic figures. A lot of beta testers confuse their urge to know more about these characters with players actually benefiting from knowing more about them; these are two very different things. If GGG isn't careful, they'll flesh out too much of the lore on these kings of legend, rendering them boring. A good Weathered Stone will bring up at least as many questions as it answers.

"

ScrotieMcB wrote:

In that case, I guess the intent needs to be portrayed better. Show the Exile getting thrown overboard. A couple seconds when you make a new character would be enough; nothing overly fancy, just dropping from boat to water, fade to black, fade back up on the shore.

I think this is the sort of effort that would add a lot of immersion per hour of work. It could be a 5 second scene, could just show from a distance so it would be the same for all the chars.

Also, I don't think that it's been mentioned, a lot of the story in Diablo 2 (at least to me) was relevant throughout the game partly thanks to Cain and Warriv following you through the acts. Diablo 3 did the same thing if I remember correctly and I think it adds a lot, although I can't put my finger on what it is. Here's what I'm talking about:

Another thing that adds a lot is when you exit town in act 3 and you see the wanderer walk away and then some flesh beasts attack you. Here's what I'm talking about: It reminds me of this guy:
That's from the Genius-ways-to-tell-a-story-and-make-the-player-care-Shelf, aisle 4.

Also, when I googled the act 3 scene for diablo 2, I was reminded of the amazing ambient sounds of that game, truly amazing. And that's also a way to tell story.

The OP made a great opening post, but I'm sad to see that we are talking about looting in it. Because there are a lot of threads about that, and not that many about what I feel this thread's most important point is.