This is why I don't like stories in my computer games. Games just aren't a good medium for telling stories, especially in the MMO space. The tighter the story, the more restrictive the gameplay. If you want player choices to be reflected in the world, then you need to do away with stories completely, otherwise you have to do some extreme phasing.
I'd much rather see the world changing at a faction level. Things like territory control is a great one. Fight well for your faction and you're area of control slowly extends. Allow players to build their own cities that change the landscape of the game. Have NPC factions that are themselves working to take back territory. Have the mobs in a zone change depending on who owns it, so if you own it, the quests / mobs might be small scale cleanup type things, but if the enemy owns it then your quests will be to reclaim it, wipe out a mini-boss etc.
You could put in some sort of automatic promotion / inheritance mechanic, for example if your faction managed to assault another factions home city and kill their king, have the king actually die and his son / brother / uncle inherit the throne, with new randomly generated character and skills. Combine with some sort of mechanic that auto-tweaks difficult, so if one factions leader is consistently killed, that faction "breeds" stronger children due to a hard life, so the leaders steadily get harder until it balances out.
You mean MMOs aren't a great medium for telling stories. Games are perfectly fine, even for a changing world, but the world must change around YOU, singularly, it can't be changing around a million other people at the same time. There can't be a million other people who are the "Chosen One!"
Nope, I mean computer games in general.
To tell a good story, you need all actors in that story to perform their parts properly. Even in single player games, the developer can't control my actions, they just have to make assumptions and roll with it. This creates a very disjointed story with a lot of inconsistency. Developers start getting around this by programming ever more restrictions into their games, like linear levels, linear quest lines, dialogue that inevitably forces you to the same ending etc. These restrictions result in a better story (but still nowhere near as good as books or films) but much worse gameplay.
Easiest example is any game which assumes I'm the good guy. The quests and story all assume I'm the good guy and force me down the route of being good, but thats not who I am. I am far more nuanced than that - most of the time I'm good, but you what what, sometimes I just wanna kill that irritating character in game. Those nuances come out in the gameplay - I'll happily slaughter everybody in sight, smash open every crate and rob everyone blind - but are almost never reflected in the story.
Thing is, it's not really feasible to create a game which is intelligent enough to track all my actions, process them and then alter quests / dialogue accordingly.
The only stories, in my opinion, that work in gaming are the ones you create yourself. The developers should set up the general framework, but it is your actions in the game that create your personal story. It is why I prefer older games for stories. The technology back then prevented too much dialogue and minimal cutscenes and animations. You got the barebones of the story from the developers, and essentially filled in the gaps using your own experiences. A quest was remembered as easy or hard (story wise) based on how easy or hard it was for you, personally (gameplay wise), not because you reached the finish and a cutscene shows your toon saying "wow, that was hard".
I agree with you, mostly.
I disagree that you need actors to preform their parts properly to tell a good story; look at improv: an advanced storytelling medium based around the concept that the actors themselves don't know what's coming next. Generally humorous, but the example goes against the supposition that a storyteller must know actions in advance in great detail.
In computer games this translates to 'I don't know what the player (players) will do'. I know what they might do, I can gather metrics in beta testing to determine what they will probably do, but I can't know for certain.
I have to think about what the important parts are; the important probable actions, and account for these possibilities, giving the player(s) feedback along the way. It's a very multi-dimensional mode of design.
I find that tricks from oral storytelling tradition actually translate quite well. I think some people see the word "story" and get hung up by thinking "book" which usually equals "linear narrative", but (obviously) this doesn't have to be the case. Books are just another medium, like film or oral tradition:
I personally believe games have the capacity to tell stories in a very unique way, because they are so interactive and multi dimensional.
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This is why I don't like stories in my computer games. Games just aren't a good medium for telling stories, especially in the MMO space. The tighter the story, the more restrictive the gameplay. If you want player choices to be reflected in the world, then you need to do away with stories completely, otherwise you have to do some extreme phasing.
I'd much rather see the world changing at a faction level. Things like territory control is a great one. Fight well for your faction and you're area of control slowly extends. Allow players to build their own cities that change the landscape of the game. Have NPC factions that are themselves working to take back territory. Have the mobs in a zone change depending on who owns it, so if you own it, the quests / mobs might be small scale cleanup type things, but if the enemy owns it then your quests will be to reclaim it, wipe out a mini-boss etc.
You could put in some sort of automatic promotion / inheritance mechanic, for example if your faction managed to assault another factions home city and kill their king, have the king actually die and his son / brother / uncle inherit the throne, with new randomly generated character and skills. Combine with some sort of mechanic that auto-tweaks difficult, so if one factions leader is consistently killed, that faction "breeds" stronger children due to a hard life, so the leaders steadily get harder until it balances out.
You mean MMOs aren't a great medium for telling stories. Games are perfectly fine, even for a changing world, but the world must change around YOU, singularly, it can't be changing around a million other people at the same time. There can't be a million other people who are the "Chosen One!"
Nope, I mean computer games in general.
To tell a good story, you need all actors in that story to perform their parts properly. Even in single player games, the developer can't control my actions, they just have to make assumptions and roll with it. This creates a very disjointed story with a lot of inconsistency. Developers start getting around this by programming ever more restrictions into their games, like linear levels, linear quest lines, dialogue that inevitably forces you to the same ending etc. These restrictions result in a better story (but still nowhere near as good as books or films) but much worse gameplay. ...snip for length....
I would contend that Naughty Dog has written better game stories than many, many movies. That said, they are about as linear as can be. As soon as we make that trade-off, it's where I see that divergence. However, I think that if you were to approach movies or books with the same level of criticism, you'd find wickedly-gaping plot holes and shit that just doesn't make sense. The whole idea behind movies and books is that you actively participate in believing that what you're being told is true. In games it's really no different. ESO is a prime example, as people run in and out of the same secret place where that dude is. For me, SWTOR was great, and I enjoyed the story quite thoroughly. That doesn't mean it's airtight, and I'd agree that you probably need to suspend your disbelief a little more for games. However, if you enjoy story in games then that's just what you need to do. If you're not a fan of story in games, that's also cool, you wouldn't be the first person to say that. However, I don't think it's as much an inability to tell a story as it is the desire to create your own story through a medium that will allow it (since books and movies simply don't allow that to happen).
I'd say Eve nailed it pretty well. Choices matter there, and players often make news when they do. CCP does it by fostering a huge, domitable open world, PvP, and player interaction, and not really anything to do with NPCs or static quests.
It would take procedural content that can be thrown away. Something this genre should have long worked on as it would save countless dollars in the long term. Shadow of Mordor seems to be trying to go this route but this genre would benefit far more from personalized content.
Citadel of Sorcery has long been promising to provide players personal content via reflected worlds which they could choose who and how many to share it with.
They've never shared how the "magic" will happen, top secret info which only the highest tier backers may be privy to.
Unfortunately seems to be stuck in a never-ending development cycle due to a lack of funding, but it is a game I hope can one day deliver on the "vision"
I'm just not placing any bets...
Yeah I've been interested in that one for a long, long... long time. Hope they manage to pull it off before I'm dead
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Today, it is only in so far a technical problem as it takes way too much time do create all the content by hand to allow for a MMO where every choice matters, and at best, not even instanced (so if you kill Tom, nobody gets to fight Cthulhu)
Sadly, even most single players do not really care about your choices. TES games being the prime example. Huge open world, several faction all supposedly interwoven, opposed, allied etc., but ultimately it doesn't matter if you became arch mage or a master swordsman, if you are dark elf or redguard. Sure, you can do the quests from one guild but not the others, but the farmer outside the city will still ask you to kill 10 rats. Once in a prominent enough position, guards should think twice about arresting you. Heck, you should be able to make theft essentially legal.
The more "focused" games like The Witcher or Dragon Age/Mass Effect do a better job at that, but have to introduce restrictions to be able to. You can't kill the king, because he's needed to make you a knight etc., so people can recognize you as one of his knights. In TES, you can become a knight *and* kill the king, but you'll still get arrested - not for killing him, thats totally okay, but for looting a candle or something like that from his body.
I'll wait to the day's end when the moon is high And then I'll rise with the tide with a lust for life, I'll Amass an army, and we'll harness a horde And then we'll limp across the land until we stand at the shore
Part of what makes for good storytelling is the ability to suspend disbelief. In the early days of MMOs, people often roleplayed or at least had more of an inclination to focus on the narrative than today in my opinion. Fast forward a few years and it became all about gear scores and parsing, statistics and more. Spreadsheets aren't all that interesting - sorry they aren't. If you know definitively why you accomplished something, it just isn't as exciting.
Remember, Luke didn't use the targeting computer when he fired the shot that destroyed the Death Star; he trusted the Force. Allowing yourself to jump into the story and experience a world can be pretty rewarding and hey, sometimes after attempt #25 to kill Foozle, maybe it makes sense to take a look at what's mucking up the team but as I get older I have become a firm believer in the ideal that it isn't about the destination; it is all about the journey.
When I look back on my best gaming moments, it is a fond memory of someone figuring something out or some wacky combination of things that led to a situation or even a great conversation over a headset while we camped a boss or waited for the enemy to move on our position.
MMOs are social experiences. Sure, sometimes I want to do my own thing but so many of them now are easily experienced solo. It is a trend that has driven communities apart. If I can put my finger on a factor that changed the landscape of MMOs, that's probably it.
Add to that storytelling now that often seems to miss the mark. Do all of us feel like we have to be the anointed one? Many recent games thrust you into the role of the savior of the universe - not always necessary for the narrative and frankly it has gotten trite.
Being a member of the Fellowship or a group with a mission that allowed the ringbearer to achieve his goal at Mount Doom would be pretty exciting (LOTRO always had that right I thought) and that kind of story would be a little more believable thus better suspend disbelief. Imagine coming away from a gaming session feeling like you made a difference! Hey guys if not for us, the ringbearer would never have made it anywhere near Mordor. Well done! That's what is missing. Even with great voice acting, graphics, mechanics, combat; a framework that is predictable is a game-killer... e,g, and that's how I saved the universe....again....hooray.....
I would contend that Naughty Dog has written better game stories than many, many movies. That said, they are about as linear as can be. As soon as we make that trade-off, it's where I see that divergence. However, I think that if you were to approach movies or books with the same level of criticism, you'd find wickedly-gaping plot holes and shit that just doesn't make sense. The whole idea behind movies and books is that you actively participate in believing that what you're being told is true. In games it's really no different. ESO is a prime example, as people run in and out of the same secret place where that dude is. For me, SWTOR was great, and I enjoyed the story quite thoroughly. That doesn't mean it's airtight, and I'd agree that you probably need to suspend your disbelief a little more for games. However, if you enjoy story in games then that's just what you need to do. If you're not a fan of story in games, that's also cool, you wouldn't be the first person to say that. However, I don't think it's as much an inability to tell a story as it is the desire to create your own story through a medium that will allow it (since books and movies simply don't allow that to happen).
Don't really disagree with anything you've said, I just think there is a massive disconnect between the different elements of story telling in games, compared to books or films.
I guess I'd split a story up into 3 parts (I've not really looked into the theory of creative writing before, so apologies if this seems really dumb):
1) The framework - this is the overriding story line / background. The Empire has built a death star and your plucky band of rebels needs to destroy it. The zombie apocolypse has come and you need to survive. Your brother has been murdered and you need to find you did it.
2) The actions - these are the things that actually happen in the story to advance it from beginning to middle and end.
3) The emotions - All the different ways that the creators use to get the audience to connect with the story emotionally.
In books and films, all three elements are tightly controlled and closely linked. The hero finds his brother's killer and gets them sent to jail, but is filled with regret because the killer was his girlfriend. The emotions are conveyed by the actor, but are closely linked to the act of arresting the killer, all of which advances the story.
In computer games, the actions and the emotions are too disconnected. I might have a quest to deliver a letter from Bree to Rivendell, a pretty epic journey, but inbetween receiving the quest and delivering, I kill 200 orcs, complete a dungeon, do some crafting, hang out in the Forsaken Inn etc. The actions all belong to me, and the emotions I feel whilst playing belong to me, yet when I get to Rivendell and hand it in, all inconsequential actions are ignored, as are my emotions.
By being so disconnected from one another, it means the story ends up really bad in comparison to books and films. By making games very linear and restricting player freedom, you can drastically reduce that disconnection in order to create much better stories (like Naughty Dog does) but the cost to gameplay is too high for me.
This is all without even touching on how badly written MMO stories are. I know a lot of people love SW:TOR for it's stories but I hated them, I thought they were really badly written, extremely predictable and backed up with bad voice acting and animations. Only MMO I've played with half-decent storylines was LotRO, but that obviously had an unfair advantage to begin with, plus the quality plummeted after the first expansion as well.
Don't really disagree with anything you've said, I just think there is a massive disconnect between the different elements of story telling in games, compared to books or films.
I guess I'd split a story up into 3 parts (I've not really looked into the theory of creative writing before, so apologies if this seems really dumb):
1) The framework - this is the overriding story line / background. The Empire has built a death star and your plucky band of rebels needs to destroy it. The zombie apocolypse has come and you need to survive. Your brother has been murdered and you need to find you did it.
2) The actions - these are the things that actually happen in the story to advance it from beginning to middle and end.
3) The emotions - All the different ways that the creators use to get the audience to connect with the story emotionally.
In books and films, all three elements are tightly controlled and closely linked. The hero finds his brother's killer and gets them sent to jail, but is filled with regret because the killer was his girlfriend. The emotions are conveyed by the actor, but are closely linked to the act of arresting the killer, all of which advances the story.
In computer games, the actions and the emotions are too disconnected. I might have a quest to deliver a letter from Bree to Rivendell, a pretty epic journey, but inbetween receiving the quest and delivering, I kill 200 orcs, complete a dungeon, do some crafting, hang out in the Forsaken Inn etc. The actions all belong to me, and the emotions I feel whilst playing belong to me, yet when I get to Rivendell and hand it in, all inconsequential actions are ignored, as are my emotions.
By being so disconnected from one another, it means the story ends up really bad in comparison to books and films. By making games very linear and restricting player freedom, you can drastically reduce that disconnection in order to create much better stories (like Naughty Dog does) but the cost to gameplay is too high for me.
This is all without even touching on how badly written MMO stories are. I know a lot of people love SW:TOR for it's stories but I hated them, I thought they were really badly written, extremely predictable and backed up with bad voice acting and animations. Only MMO I've played with half-decent storylines was LotRO, but that obviously had an unfair advantage to begin with, plus the quality plummeted after the first expansion as well.
Yeah, and this is really the biggest problem in games, right? I can't disagree with you. Also, I don't think it's horrible writing, I think it's more a matter of it being almost impossible to create urgency in an open-world game. Also, some people have a problem not being special which leads to really massive plot holes in games. Again, I look back at ESO where the story (framework) is around you being "The One", but there just happens to be millions of others on the exact same quests as you.
Also, I totally agree with you with regards to the tired side quests. Honestly, I've said it before and will say it again, for as horrible as everyone said Destiny was, the pacing of the game was phenomenal. I'm also going through WoW right now and concentrating almost exclusively on only following the main story quests. I'd say that Legion actually does pretty well with pacing, too. I'm at level 106 and on the 4th zone of 5. So, conservatively, knowing what content is ahead of me once I finish up the remaining zones, I think I could almost be max level. So it looks like we MIGHT be getting to a point where we can do away with the fetch quests and kill quests and concentrate on a more linear story? Maybe? That might, possibly, be tied together more loosely?
Either way, MMOs still have wildly broken and disconnected stories and immersion from all the reasons we know of . Also, I think that SRPGs like W3 suffer the same, as you get more open. It's a byproduct of choice, right? I think it's inherent. If we were to place it in the context of a movie, it would be like having 200 people in a theater, deciding how the main character will make decisions. It either doesn't work at all and is completely broken, or regardless of your decisions, you're still shoved down a linear path.
Again, I look back at ESO where the story (framework) is around you
being "The One", but there just happens to be millions of others on the
exact same quests as you.
yeah, that's the players' fault in my opinion. They can't use their imagination and realize there are two things going on, "their personal story" and their interaction with other players.
They seem to not be able to separate the two.
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I could see choices matter if it affects how you're able to chain NPCs together.
Each quest NPC has a few attributes attached to it like: "has a hidden safe room", "Scholar of X", "can be used to trigger X letter of introduction quest", "healer of the fallen", or similar. Then just make a bunch of quests that use NPC names like ad libs/Fill-In-The-Blank type checks. You could even make it a "hard core" questing game by making it so you need to talk to all the NPCs and track yourself the things they "might" be able to do for you in the future.
though I'm sure most people won't have the patience for such a system, despite how dynamic it could be, and that it lets you choose which NPCs you want to work with (I know in FFXIV I've wanted to ditch Minfillia/Alphiaud for the longest time). Especially since in recent times quests are something that is in your way, instead of content.
I'm not even sure if I would have the patience to go through such a system myself, especially if that was the only thing the game did different from the typical EQ/WoW style gameplay.
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"At one point technology meant making tech that could get to the moon, now it means making tech that could get you a taxi."
yeah, that's the players' fault in my opinion. They can't use their imagination and realize there are two things going on, "their personal story" and their interaction with other players.
They seem to not be able to separate the two.
It is not a player's fault. Every game has rules, and you play the game as it is made. Everything else is delusional. You could think you are fighting armies of other players when you play Tetris, the imagination has no limits. But that does not make Tetris a MMO
So, when there are no mechanisms and need for interaction implemented into the game, you cannot blame the players. Most modern MMORPGs have three main components - you can see them very clear in GW2 A personal solo story, a limited multiplayer component for small groups, and limited multiplayer component for large groups. Usually the most of the content is related to the first component, while the next two form the so called "end game".
And as the most of the content is singleplayer, but used by many players, the consequences are simply impossible. Nothing you do in the game has any matter.
Is it hard to make a multiplayer game? No. Player to player quests, trade, competitive and cooperative classes and professions, competitive and cooperative mobs. All of this is already made in different games. But until somebody changes the marketing model, that is focused on the solo customer, you cannot expect good MMORPGs. Now the publishers want the players to stay in the game and to pay. So grind and cash shop. The entertainment is not important. All you get as a customer is a candy eye box full with grind and cash shop on the bottom. And this is not fun.
If someone says that the grind is fun, he is a liar. Because nobody laughs when he is doing the grind.
Player behavior came first, then the changes came to keep up with it...
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
If someone says that the grind is fun, he is a liar. Because nobody laughs when he is doing the grind.
The problem with you ikcin is that you are not only opinionated but you think your opinions are universal truths. I'm glad you are clear with what you want but "news flash" they are not universal truths.
I'll stick to what I said, it is the players fault as there are two things going on, a "personal" story" and then the "mmo part". Whether you like that or not is your business.
But in no way do players' "personal stories" acknowledge that everyone is the chosen one (for games that take that tack). "you" are the chosen one and there are "other people" around.
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yeah, that's the players' fault in my opinion. They can't use their imagination and realize there are two things going on, "their personal story" and their interaction with other players.
They seem to not be able to separate the two.
It is not a player's fault. Every game has rules, and you play the game as it is made. Everything else is delusional. You could think you are fighting armies of other players when you play Tetris, the imagination has no limits. But that does not make Tetris a MMO
So, when there are no mechanisms and need for interaction implemented into the game, you cannot blame the players. Most modern MMORPGs have three main components - you can see them very clear in GW2 A personal solo story, a limited multiplayer component for small groups, and limited multiplayer component for large groups. Usually the most of the content is related to the first component, while the next two form the so called "end game".
And as the most of the content is singleplayer, but used by many players, the consequences are simply impossible. Nothing you do in the game has any matter.
Is it hard to make a multiplayer game? No. Player to player quests, trade, competitive and cooperative classes and professions, competitive and cooperative mobs. All of this is already made in different games. But until somebody changes the marketing model, that is focused on the solo customer, you cannot expect good MMORPGs. Now the publishers want the players to stay in the game and to pay. So grind and cash shop. The entertainment is not important. All you get as a customer is a candy eye box full with grind and cash shop on the bottom. And this is not fun.
If someone says that the grind is fun, he is a liar. Because nobody laughs when he is doing the grind.
Why do you think people grind or even play MMOs "for fun?"
I know some do, but the concept is foreign to me.
I take pleasure in accomplishing goals, overcoming obstacles and ever always advancing my progression in meaningful ways.
The means and methods to accomplish this are rarely what I consider "fun."
That word has little meaning or correlation in my gaming.
I much prefer achieving my goals rather than someone elses.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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The real problem is the serversize. Offering 10 000 players many options to change the world just isn't possible unless you do a TOR and instance all things that change.
Now, if you had a few hundred players you could actually do that, the fewer players the more choices that matters. It still wouldn't be easy but it wouldn't be impossible.
The best you can do without instances in a MMO is something similar to GW2: what you do have some effect but just in a very temporary way and a few hours from now everything you worked for will be reseted.
Actually, I think there is room for a few MMO like games with 128 or 256 players and far more focus on a single player in the open world (now you have 100% focus in the instanced content where you are some kind of messiah but in the open world you are just a small piece in a huge machine). Maybe something with player run servers not that unlike Biowares Neverwinter nights.
But for it to work in a MMO with regular sized servers or mega servers you more or less need a AI that handle everything or a whole bunch of GMs constantly on. And using tons of unpaid volunteer GMs is rarely a good idea, they tend to abuse the power. As for the AI I don't think there is something powerful enough around. and even with one of those unrealistic choices you would need to reset the servers content now and then.
The real problem is the serversize. Offering 10 000 players many options to change the world just isn't possible unless you do a TOR and instance all things that change.
Now, if you had a few hundred players you could actually do that, the fewer players the more choices that matters. It still wouldn't be easy but it wouldn't be impossible.
The best you can do without instances in a MMO is something similar to GW2: what you do have some effect but just in a very temporary way and a few hours from now everything you worked for will be reseted.
Actually, I think there is room for a few MMO like games with 128 or 256 players and far more focus on a single player in the open world (now you have 100% focus in the instanced content where you are some kind of messiah but in the open world you are just a small piece in a huge machine). Maybe something with player run servers not that unlike Biowares Neverwinter nights.
But for it to work in a MMO with regular sized servers or mega servers you more or less need a AI that handle everything or a whole bunch of GMs constantly on. And using tons of unpaid volunteer GMs is rarely a good idea, they tend to abuse the power. As for the AI I don't think there is something powerful enough around. and even with one of those unrealistic choices you would need to reset the servers content now and then.
Or...you make tools available for players to do it.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Meaningful choices that lead to tangibly different outcomes down the road is usually either a waste of time, or a recipe for trouble.
60% percent of players will watch the Youtube guide to see in advance which choices have the "best" outcomes, so they can meta-game their way to fame and power.
30% will ignore the Youtube guide and forge on regardless, only to bury Support under complaints later when their character suffers due to the random choices they made. MMO's should be fun, not punishments, blah, blah
10% will play as intended, and have a journey of discovery.
Why do you think people grind or even play MMOs "for fun?"
I know some do, but the concept is foreign to me.
I take pleasure in accomplishing goals, overcoming obstacles and ever always advancing my progression in meaningful ways.
The means and methods to accomplish this are rarely what I consider "fun."
That word has little meaning or correlation in my gaming.
I much prefer achieving my goals rather than someone elses.
In most games even older ones there are limited goals to truly achieve, most revolve around PVP or hitting some plateau. Ex.. A certain build finalization, a certain item, tier or other game and/or profession specific milestone (Ships, alpha classes, etc).
While there may be a greater faction or guild based goal for all to work toward in some MMORPGs (EX taking down guild bases in SWG, Taking Keeps in DAOC, Raids in EQ/WOW). There's typically little else in the grand scheme of things.
This is where players are part and parcel to something more. It's also a big reason games started adding questing as they have since AOC. IE closer to single player RPGs.
Designing multi-player content isn't hard as Ikcin said. What's hard is making content that thousands can mutually take part in in creative ways, without the integrity of the world and atmosphere taking a dive off a cliff. So things get scaled down to smaller guild based or group based activities.
The content is controllable, in turn it has limited overall impact on the overall game. There are slight exceptions to this (basically EVE), yet many do not like to spend their time in such chaotic lawless places.
This is why the direction the MMO took was pretty obvious to see coming.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Sovrath, it will be player's fault, when the players start to make and sell games. The marketing models are based on historical examples and data, but not on the current conditions.
Look at it this way, the quests only ever reference the player as part of the story. There of course can be games that acknowledge more "special" people but I can only think of a few.
So if the stories don't acknowledge other "special chosen" people and they always refer to "you" the player as the "chosen one" or some such thing then it's obvious that it's your story.
But some players seem so set on the idea that all the players around them are part of that story; which, as I mentioned above, is not true unless the story actually takes that into account.
And, if the story does take that into account then obviously it's "ok" to have other special people running around.
These themepark mmo's try to wedge single player stories into their games but for some people it just creates unnecessary confusion.
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Sovrath, it will be player's fault, when the players start to make and sell games. The marketing models are based on historical examples and data, but not on the current conditions.
Look at it this way, the quests only ever reference the player as part of the story. There of course can be games that acknowledge more "special" people but I can only think of a few.
So if the stories don't acknowledge other "special chosen" people and they always refer to "you" the player as the "chosen one" or some such thing then it's obvious that it's your story.
But some players seem so set on the idea that all the players around them are part of that story; which, as I mentioned above, is not true unless the story actually takes that into account.
And, if the story does take that into account then obviously it's "ok" to have other special people running around.
These themepark mmo's try to wedge single player stories into their games but for some people it just creates unnecessary confusion.
All that should really need to be said is three words, suspension of disbelief. That's a requirement in most forms of entertainment. Especially in fantasy and sci-fantasy. Readers are capable of this, movie watchers are, most single player gamers. It just seems like this is a foreign concept to many who play MMORPGs.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
The real problem is the serversize. Offering 10 000 players many options to change the world just isn't possible unless you do a TOR and instance all things that change.
Now, if you had a few hundred players you could actually do that, the fewer players the more choices that matters. It still wouldn't be easy but it wouldn't be impossible.
The best you can do without instances in a MMO is something similar to GW2: what you do have some effect but just in a very temporary way and a few hours from now everything you worked for will be reseted.
Actually, I think there is room for a few MMO like games with 128 or 256 players and far more focus on a single player in the open world (now you have 100% focus in the instanced content where you are some kind of messiah but in the open world you are just a small piece in a huge machine). Maybe something with player run servers not that unlike Biowares Neverwinter nights.
But for it to work in a MMO with regular sized servers or mega servers you more or less need a AI that handle everything or a whole bunch of GMs constantly on. And using tons of unpaid volunteer GMs is rarely a good idea, they tend to abuse the power. As for the AI I don't think there is something powerful enough around. and even with one of those unrealistic choices you would need to reset the servers content now and then.
Or...you make tools available for players to do it.
Yes, but even with tools each player need a rather large area of space or the game would be a madhouse, and that still need smaller servers unless you can make a MMORPG the size of Daggerfall.
I nowhere in my post said anything about themepark Vs sandboxes, if you want lots of interaction with the world you need space to pull it off. A sandbox would probably be easier to design around this, while the tools is far harder to make then most people realize making enough content to make a 10K player themepark work with many world effects decided by the players just isn't humanely possible.
You could certainly make a sandbox with the features larger then a themepark but you would still have far smaller servers then what most people today are used to.
Myself, I don't care if a game is a themepark or a sandbox as long as it is fun to play.
Unfortunately when a decision is made and then a player finds themselves locked out of certain areas or quests they whine and complain and the developers have to change their minds or risk the bad reviews the game will garner. So they end up creating ways to fix the faction or undo the choices the player has made or reducing the impact of the choices.
Players cannot handle it judging from the the questions and complaints you see in single player games. When they made some decision and obtained a bad faction with one house or companion in Pillars of Eternity they were posting about having to replay the game because certain choices screwed them for good.
Eh, the issue here is more than likely as much with the feeling of helplessness to affect the situation in the way the player truly wants. Which, as Torval mentioned in regards to MMORPG making "choices matter," the issue of unsatisfactory results from choosing between canned responses is an inherent problem with no simple way to resolve the issue. At least, not without major technological advancements.
You have a player, with the infinite depths of consciousness and a personality that makes value-based judgments in every shade of grey imaginable. You then give them 2-5 canned responses and tell them to attempt to infer, many times, what exactly the character will say (as most RPGs these days offer a "synopsis" response description that isn't verbatim to what the character actually says when you choose the option), but also how they will say it. I've picked response choices that seemed diplomatic based upon the response description provided to me by CDProjektRed, only to watch Geralt the Witcher deliver the general idea in a way that made them fighting words. Hell no, I don't want to play a character that suffers from that kind of meta-schizophrenia and just "deal" with the consequences.
And that's just touching on the discrepancies between the descriptions of the responses and what the character's actual dialogue is for that response. People hate being locked out of content because they chose a poorly labeled response that their protagonist character delivered with all the tact of a Gallagher show, not because they cannot handle their choices actually making a difference in the game world.
Additionally, there are times when an improper response doesn't take you down a different path, but simply shuts off content to the player. Why would any player be okay with a response that cuts out whole swathes of game content? It's not acceptable to simply restrict access to content based upon what amounts to (most of the time) one, singular decision made by the player.. If you wanna do a "choices matter" game right, you open up a similar set of content to replace it with so that the player doesn't experience less content, only different content.
I'm sure some players struggle with any kind of consequence in their video games. But I'd say the larger majority just didn't at all expect their character to deliver the response in a particular way, or they had to settle on a response that doesn't accurately mirror their true feelings about the moral dilemma presented, which makes dealing with the consequences of the response they chose extra bitter. Not to mention that they're attempting to respond to a character they have almost NO personality information on. Couple that with the inability to include realistic non-verbal communication in video games (super important for us humans as well as animals), and I absolutely get why folks would be miffed.
Comments
I disagree that you need actors to preform their parts properly to tell a good story; look at improv: an advanced storytelling medium based around the concept that the actors themselves don't know what's coming next. Generally humorous, but the example goes against the supposition that a storyteller must know actions in advance in great detail.
In computer games this translates to 'I don't know what the player (players) will do'. I know what they might do, I can gather metrics in beta testing to determine what they will probably do, but I can't know for certain.
I have to think about what the important parts are; the important probable actions, and account for these possibilities, giving the player(s) feedback along the way. It's a very multi-dimensional mode of design.
I find that tricks from oral storytelling tradition actually translate quite well. I think some people see the word "story" and get hung up by thinking "book" which usually equals "linear narrative", but (obviously) this doesn't have to be the case. Books are just another medium, like film or oral tradition:
http://www.eldrbarry.net/roos/eest.htm
I personally believe games have the capacity to tell stories in a very unique way, because they are so interactive and multi dimensional.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Authored 139 missions in Vendetta Online and 6 tracks in Distance
I would contend that Naughty Dog has written better game stories than many, many movies. That said, they are about as linear as can be. As soon as we make that trade-off, it's where I see that divergence. However, I think that if you were to approach movies or books with the same level of criticism, you'd find wickedly-gaping plot holes and shit that just doesn't make sense. The whole idea behind movies and books is that you actively participate in believing that what you're being told is true. In games it's really no different. ESO is a prime example, as people run in and out of the same secret place where that dude is. For me, SWTOR was great, and I enjoyed the story quite thoroughly. That doesn't mean it's airtight, and I'd agree that you probably need to suspend your disbelief a little more for games. However, if you enjoy story in games then that's just what you need to do. If you're not a fan of story in games, that's also cool, you wouldn't be the first person to say that. However, I don't think it's as much an inability to tell a story as it is the desire to create your own story through a medium that will allow it (since books and movies simply don't allow that to happen).
Crazkanuk
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Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
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“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
Sadly, even most single players do not really care about your choices. TES games being the prime example. Huge open world, several faction all supposedly interwoven, opposed, allied etc., but ultimately it doesn't matter if you became arch mage or a master swordsman, if you are dark elf or redguard. Sure, you can do the quests from one guild but not the others, but the farmer outside the city will still ask you to kill 10 rats. Once in a prominent enough position, guards should think twice about arresting you. Heck, you should be able to make theft essentially legal.
The more "focused" games like The Witcher or Dragon Age/Mass Effect do a better job at that, but have to introduce restrictions to be able to. You can't kill the king, because he's needed to make you a knight etc., so people can recognize you as one of his knights. In TES, you can become a knight *and* kill the king, but you'll still get arrested - not for killing him, thats totally okay, but for looting a candle or something like that from his body.
I'll wait to the day's end when the moon is high
And then I'll rise with the tide with a lust for life, I'll
Amass an army, and we'll harness a horde
And then we'll limp across the land until we stand at the shore
Remember, Luke didn't use the targeting computer when he fired the shot that destroyed the Death Star; he trusted the Force. Allowing yourself to jump into the story and experience a world can be pretty rewarding and hey, sometimes after attempt #25 to kill Foozle, maybe it makes sense to take a look at what's mucking up the team but as I get older I have become a firm believer in the ideal that it isn't about the destination; it is all about the journey.
When I look back on my best gaming moments, it is a fond memory of someone figuring something out or some wacky combination of things that led to a situation or even a great conversation over a headset while we camped a boss or waited for the enemy to move on our position.
MMOs are social experiences. Sure, sometimes I want to do my own thing but so many of them now are easily experienced solo. It is a trend that has driven communities apart. If I can put my finger on a factor that changed the landscape of MMOs, that's probably it.
Add to that storytelling now that often seems to miss the mark. Do all of us feel like we have to be the anointed one? Many recent games thrust you into the role of the savior of the universe - not always necessary for the narrative and frankly it has gotten trite.
Being a member of the Fellowship or a group with a mission that allowed the ringbearer to achieve his goal at Mount Doom would be pretty exciting (LOTRO always had that right I thought) and that kind of story would be a little more believable thus better suspend disbelief. Imagine coming away from a gaming session feeling like you made a difference! Hey guys if not for us, the ringbearer would never have made it anywhere near Mordor. Well done! That's what is missing. Even with great voice acting, graphics, mechanics, combat; a framework that is predictable is a game-killer... e,g, and that's how I saved the universe....again....hooray.....
Seaspite
Playing ESO on my X-Box
I guess I'd split a story up into 3 parts (I've not really looked into the theory of creative writing before, so apologies if this seems really dumb):
1) The framework - this is the overriding story line / background. The Empire has built a death star and your plucky band of rebels needs to destroy it. The zombie apocolypse has come and you need to survive. Your brother has been murdered and you need to find you did it.
2) The actions - these are the things that actually happen in the story to advance it from beginning to middle and end.
3) The emotions - All the different ways that the creators use to get the audience to connect with the story emotionally.
In books and films, all three elements are tightly controlled and closely linked. The hero finds his brother's killer and gets them sent to jail, but is filled with regret because the killer was his girlfriend. The emotions are conveyed by the actor, but are closely linked to the act of arresting the killer, all of which advances the story.
In computer games, the actions and the emotions are too disconnected. I might have a quest to deliver a letter from Bree to Rivendell, a pretty epic journey, but inbetween receiving the quest and delivering, I kill 200 orcs, complete a dungeon, do some crafting, hang out in the Forsaken Inn etc. The actions all belong to me, and the emotions I feel whilst playing belong to me, yet when I get to Rivendell and hand it in, all inconsequential actions are ignored, as are my emotions.
By being so disconnected from one another, it means the story ends up really bad in comparison to books and films. By making games very linear and restricting player freedom, you can drastically reduce that disconnection in order to create much better stories (like Naughty Dog does) but the cost to gameplay is too high for me.
This is all without even touching on how badly written MMO stories are. I know a lot of people love SW:TOR for it's stories but I hated them, I thought they were really badly written, extremely predictable and backed up with bad voice acting and animations. Only MMO I've played with half-decent storylines was LotRO, but that obviously had an unfair advantage to begin with, plus the quality plummeted after the first expansion as well.
Yeah, and this is really the biggest problem in games, right? I can't disagree with you. Also, I don't think it's horrible writing, I think it's more a matter of it being almost impossible to create urgency in an open-world game. Also, some people have a problem not being special which leads to really massive plot holes in games. Again, I look back at ESO where the story (framework) is around you being "The One", but there just happens to be millions of others on the exact same quests as you.
Also, I totally agree with you with regards to the tired side quests. Honestly, I've said it before and will say it again, for as horrible as everyone said Destiny was, the pacing of the game was phenomenal. I'm also going through WoW right now and concentrating almost exclusively on only following the main story quests. I'd say that Legion actually does pretty well with pacing, too. I'm at level 106 and on the 4th zone of 5. So, conservatively, knowing what content is ahead of me once I finish up the remaining zones, I think I could almost be max level. So it looks like we MIGHT be getting to a point where we can do away with the fetch quests and kill quests and concentrate on a more linear story? Maybe? That might, possibly, be tied together more loosely?
Either way, MMOs still have wildly broken and disconnected stories and immersion from all the reasons we know of . Also, I think that SRPGs like W3 suffer the same, as you get more open. It's a byproduct of choice, right? I think it's inherent. If we were to place it in the context of a movie, it would be like having 200 people in a theater, deciding how the main character will make decisions. It either doesn't work at all and is completely broken, or regardless of your decisions, you're still shoved down a linear path.
I think we're on the same page.... mostly.....
Crazkanuk
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Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
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They seem to not be able to separate the two.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Each quest NPC has a few attributes attached to it like: "has a hidden safe room", "Scholar of X", "can be used to trigger X letter of introduction quest", "healer of the fallen", or similar. Then just make a bunch of quests that use NPC names like ad libs/Fill-In-The-Blank type checks. You could even make it a "hard core" questing game by making it so you need to talk to all the NPCs and track yourself the things they "might" be able to do for you in the future.
though I'm sure most people won't have the patience for such a system, despite how dynamic it could be, and that it lets you choose which NPCs you want to work with (I know in FFXIV I've wanted to ditch Minfillia/Alphiaud for the longest time). Especially since in recent times quests are something that is in your way, instead of content.
I'm not even sure if I would have the patience to go through such a system myself, especially if that was the only thing the game did different from the typical EQ/WoW style gameplay.
Practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent.
"At one point technology meant making tech that could get to the moon, now it means making tech that could get you a taxi."
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I'll stick to what I said, it is the players fault as there are two things going on, a "personal" story" and then the "mmo part". Whether you like that or not is your business.
But in no way do players' "personal stories" acknowledge that everyone is the chosen one (for games that take that tack). "you" are the chosen one and there are "other people" around.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I know some do, but the concept is foreign to me.
I take pleasure in accomplishing goals, overcoming obstacles and ever always advancing my progression in meaningful ways.
The means and methods to accomplish this are rarely what I consider "fun."
That word has little meaning or correlation in my gaming.
I much prefer achieving my goals rather than someone elses.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Now, if you had a few hundred players you could actually do that, the fewer players the more choices that matters. It still wouldn't be easy but it wouldn't be impossible.
The best you can do without instances in a MMO is something similar to GW2: what you do have some effect but just in a very temporary way and a few hours from now everything you worked for will be reseted.
Actually, I think there is room for a few MMO like games with 128 or 256 players and far more focus on a single player in the open world (now you have 100% focus in the instanced content where you are some kind of messiah but in the open world you are just a small piece in a huge machine). Maybe something with player run servers not that unlike Biowares Neverwinter nights.
But for it to work in a MMO with regular sized servers or mega servers you more or less need a AI that handle everything or a whole bunch of GMs constantly on. And using tons of unpaid volunteer GMs is rarely a good idea, they tend to abuse the power. As for the AI I don't think there is something powerful enough around. and even with one of those unrealistic choices you would need to reset the servers content now and then.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
60% percent of players will watch the Youtube guide to see in advance which choices have the "best" outcomes, so they can meta-game their way to fame and power.
30% will ignore the Youtube guide and forge on regardless, only to bury Support under complaints later when their character suffers due to the random choices they made. MMO's should be fun, not punishments, blah, blah
10% will play as intended, and have a journey of discovery.
While there may be a greater faction or guild based goal for all to work toward in some MMORPGs (EX taking down guild bases in SWG, Taking Keeps in DAOC, Raids in EQ/WOW). There's typically little else in the grand scheme of things.
This is where players are part and parcel to something more. It's also a big reason games started adding questing as they have since AOC. IE closer to single player RPGs.
Designing multi-player content isn't hard as Ikcin said. What's hard is making content that thousands can mutually take part in in creative ways, without the integrity of the world and atmosphere taking a dive off a cliff. So things get scaled down to smaller guild based or group based activities.
The content is controllable, in turn it has limited overall impact on the overall game. There are slight exceptions to this (basically EVE), yet many do not like to spend their time in such chaotic lawless places.
This is why the direction the MMO took was pretty obvious to see coming.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
So if the stories don't acknowledge other "special chosen" people and they always refer to "you" the player as the "chosen one" or some such thing then it's obvious that it's your story.
But some players seem so set on the idea that all the players around them are part of that story; which, as I mentioned above, is not true unless the story actually takes that into account.
And, if the story does take that into account then obviously it's "ok" to have other special people running around.
These themepark mmo's try to wedge single player stories into their games but for some people it just creates unnecessary confusion.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I nowhere in my post said anything about themepark Vs sandboxes, if you want lots of interaction with the world you need space to pull it off. A sandbox would probably be easier to design around this, while the tools is far harder to make then most people realize making enough content to make a 10K player themepark work with many world effects decided by the players just isn't humanely possible.
You could certainly make a sandbox with the features larger then a themepark but you would still have far smaller servers then what most people today are used to.
Myself, I don't care if a game is a themepark or a sandbox as long as it is fun to play.
It turned me on.
You have a player, with the infinite depths of consciousness and a personality that makes value-based judgments in every shade of grey imaginable. You then give them 2-5 canned responses and tell them to attempt to infer, many times, what exactly the character will say (as most RPGs these days offer a "synopsis" response description that isn't verbatim to what the character actually says when you choose the option), but also how they will say it. I've picked response choices that seemed diplomatic based upon the response description provided to me by CDProjektRed, only to watch Geralt the Witcher deliver the general idea in a way that made them fighting words. Hell no, I don't want to play a character that suffers from that kind of meta-schizophrenia and just "deal" with the consequences.
And that's just touching on the discrepancies between the descriptions of the responses and what the character's actual dialogue is for that response. People hate being locked out of content because they chose a poorly labeled response that their protagonist character delivered with all the tact of a Gallagher show, not because they cannot handle their choices actually making a difference in the game world.
Additionally, there are times when an improper response doesn't take you down a different path, but simply shuts off content to the player. Why would any player be okay with a response that cuts out whole swathes of game content? It's not acceptable to simply restrict access to content based upon what amounts to (most of the time) one, singular decision made by the player.. If you wanna do a "choices matter" game right, you open up a similar set of content to replace it with so that the player doesn't experience less content, only different content.
I'm sure some players struggle with any kind of consequence in their video games. But I'd say the larger majority just didn't at all expect their character to deliver the response in a particular way, or they had to settle on a response that doesn't accurately mirror their true feelings about the moral dilemma presented, which makes dealing with the consequences of the response they chose extra bitter. Not to mention that they're attempting to respond to a character they have almost NO personality information on. Couple that with the inability to include realistic non-verbal communication in video games (super important for us humans as well as animals), and I absolutely get why folks would be miffed.