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EQN & StoryBricks: Putting The RP Back In MMORPG
Dejoblue
Member UncommonPosts: 307
http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=7e1844ab69e151021701614fa&id=9a9284b20d&e=[UNIQID]
http://eq2wire.com/2013/04/23/storybricks-announces-eqnext-involvement/
It is designed so that people can make their own MMOs, or at least their own quests, in much the same way MINECRAFT allows one to build things themselves. IE it is designed to be accessible.
So I was really intrigued by the possibilities of what we know about StoryBricks and I found their YouTube channel. It has Alpha gameplay. From just that alone you can see how instead of "factions" which is almost like an experience bar, the game can have intricate NPC and player interactions.
As well it looks like, maybe I am wrong, that NPCs can go about their business living their own lives, so to speak, not following specific patrol paths and interacting with players as well as NPCs.
Instead of checking your faction level NPCs check your relations with other NPCs and if we are lucky even other players.
Imagine a guard seeing you are grouped with a friend of yours that he dislikes and now the guard is angry at you and has dialoge telling you about your friend, trying to sway you from playing with him.
I do not know the possibilities, but just scratching the surface looks amazing.
Anyway check out the video they have released and tell me below what your thoughts are.
I think that we are really in for something new and special, bringing the RP back to MMORPG without a real necessity for a specific RP guild or server.
I read many forums and again and again I see a relation and comparison to themepark MMOs and I think that I think outside of that box, but I am just now thinking that perhaps it is beyond that even. The technology is here and I can imagine it, what we get from SOE with EQN remains to be seen, but I am excited simply because this technology is now out there being shown to the world and now new ideas can grow and evolve from what we get with EQN, good or bad.
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*EDIT*StoryBricks is founded by a Meridian 59 developer among others, check out the kickstarter:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/storybricks/storybricks-the-mmorpg-storytelling-toolset
Dunno if that carries any weight but it is definitely coming from a veteran, that is old school. *EDIT*
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Comments
StoryBricks will be incorporated into EQN, so it's in the right place. It's an interesting system. Can't wait to learn even more about it and see how it works in practice.
Yes SOE is working with them to incorporate it into EQN. I avhe updated the OP to reflect this so as to not cause confusing or false flagging.
Thank you for your help
WOW, Devloper Diary Three is even more detailed.
You can create a spider web of interactions between ALL NPCs in the world.
The thing about this is you will still get the same quest kill # rats except you won't have to kill the rats maybe you can do something else to complete the quest or you can kill the rats. If they do it right there will be different ways of doing every quest and how you did one quest will effect the options you have in the next one etc.
Also factions if you choose to kill something else in a quest maybe that action makes it so you open up another quest you would otherwise not be able to do or maybe it blocks one you would of been able to do later. There are a million different ways to make it creative and unique.
This post has me far more intrigued than any of the twitter bs thats being talked about.
i hope they actually utilize it.
http://s36.photobucket.com/user/mhoward48/media/OnwYv97.jpg.html
We know the company behind it is working with EQN. We just don't know how they plan to incorporate it. When they ended their Kickstarter, they cancelled the game they were making around it and decided to license it out as a toolset for game developers to add AI to their game. So we don't know if players will have access to the actual toolset in some way or SOE will just be using the AI.
Basically player factions will be able to create their own content for each other eg quests and whatnot using storybricks to populate their towns with their own made quests and npc actors. I guess a bit more, but it basically means each faction will create their own PvE content as opposed to the devs doing it. I guess as this game is F2P fast paced combat makes sense for new players and cash shop for players that want to design more content THAT THEY WANT not what the devs THINK they want. Final guess though not last: Factions can charge in-game money for players to do quests to earn faction points and that feeds the economy for crafting new gear for pvp...
/guess.
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
RPlite; for mmo players who fear roleplay.
Still, it is a hopeful development; if you can get mmo players used to interacting with NPCs a bit at a time, perhaps they can begin interacting with other people voluntarily.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
That would only be true of roleplay was enforced.
I personally LOVE roleplay, but it's hard to find people to rp with all the time. Besides, I don't look at it as roleplaying with npcs, rather it's giving the developers the ability to give NPCs behaviors like you see in singleplayer rpgs like the Witcher series or Skyrim. Make the world a lot more interesting than a bunch of people standing around 24/7 waiting for an endless stream of adventurers to come by to deliver a message to the guy next to them.
"You'll never win an argument with an idiot because he is too stupid to recognize his own defeat." ~Anonymous
good summary
eq2wire commentary from April 2013
http://eq2wire.com/2013/04/23/storybricks-announces-eqnext-involvement/
EQ2 fan sites
I love it. I have been doing a bit more research on Story Bricks and it just gets me more excited. The player made content a la Nexus (Skyrim, Fallout etc) were some of the main reasons i keep going back to crank them up again. This is a good thing.
*Blizzard awaits their move
I really do not see the big deal in this.
If you go back to EQ 1, and look at some of the better quests, they basically do the same thing. An NPC had a faction he belonged to, in order to get or progress through that quest you needed faction. So the difference is what? Now there is personal faction instead of group faction? So what. That is not the point of the quest, the point is to progress and finish it. They are just switching personal faction with group faction....you still need to raise it.
And the actual mechanics are the same. An NPC has an item, or wants an item...ok, big deal. That is how all quests are. You get an item, or combine an item then give an item to someone to progress through the quest.
All it seems is that this system makes it a bit easier to write the quests....but even that is not a big deal because when you are designing quests....you are writing them anyway. You are making the NPCs, or creating the items that need to be acquired.
Actually, this system seems like a dumbed down quest creator, where you don't bother thinking about the NPCs and just sort through a program to figure out who can do what.
If you ever did the Soulfire quest from EQ 1, you know exactly what I am talking about. That quest had loads of lore attached, factions to work with, NPCs to find and figure out how/what they wanted and in the end you were told the story of Lucan D'Lere and his fall from grace.
I do not see how storybricks makes this that much different. It is basically the same thing.
Thanks for the info, good to know. That could be very exciting.
No, it really isn't the same thing. If you don't understand the difference and have watched those videos, I guess you'll have to wait until SoE Live.
Old system:
Kill 10 rats, get reward.
Don't kill 10 rats, don't get reward.
New system:
Kill 10 rats, get reward.
Don't kill 10 rats, don't get reward, also Bob the npc across the street harasses you your entire life asking why you didn't kill the rats.
Kidding. =P
I wonder if this "StoryBricks" stuff was what got MMORPG and TTH all crazy excited?
I'm intrigued... but at the same time, I can't imagine most people being very good at creating their own content (for others to experience).
I hope there's a good deal of control and management - it might be a sandbox game, but I don't want a free-for-all of stupid ruining my game.
Sigh...here we go again people thinking the RP in MMORPG means players acting out their character in chat or voice chat.which it doesn't and never has.
But anyways the storybrick system does look good for all players not just RPers,it's great for them if they can create set pieces to base their RP in,but people who like to create are serviced by it as are gamers looking for more content.
If it works out at least.
This looks very cool.
And thankfully, has nothing to do with PvP.Thanks for the links for those??
Anyway thanks OP for sharing, even though I searched it already myself, it's a really intresting concept to bring into EQN.
I don't think nor want it as a toolset for players, this tech I asume is pure for the game itself, done by the developers.
Would you like it as a toolset for player?
I think it's the next gen of AI for games, it could really turn the game alive (gamewise)
Really excited how this will work in a A-tittle game or MMORPG.
I think certain singleplayer games already have something similar, where you as the ingame player are known thru out the gameworld by NPC's, how they react towards you if you are good or evil.
MMORPG however it doesn't really matter if your good or evil as all enemy NPC will Always react the same, they fight back if you attack them while his friend NPC just stands 2 feet away not moving a muscle.