It's too different...

Sorry, DM, but I can''t say I like it. There''s nothing worse in a game than a lackluster ending. So without any kind of story structure at all, how do you plan to pull off a good one?

Hmmm... good point.

- DarkMage139
++++++++++++++++
"Shut up and give me the freakin code" -unknown
"Ask and you will be shot" -snes16bit
"Not again!" -SHilbert (upon being assimilated)
"Nazrix is cool." - Nazrix
"You've only seen the beginning" -The Dark Lord of RPGs

DM,

Have you ever played Daggerfall? That''s sort of how that is.
That''s more or less what I am planning to do with my current project. I am doing it solely to prove to Landfish that it can be done

J/K...I don''t know if it will work, but I am going to try ''cause it''s what I''ve been wanting to do for a long time.





"NPC's are people too!" --dwarfsoft

"Nazrix is cool." --Nazrix first, then Darkmage

Nazrix, I put Mutable on the Ten Commandmants list just for YOU! Isn''t that sweet?

Yes, I noticed that I almost had a damn heart attack

quote:

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"If the game never changes no matter how good or bad you are, no matter what choices you make, you've wasted the most powerful tool interactivity has to offer for your story."

---

I had to check twice to see who posted that





"NPC's are people too!" --dwarfsoft

"Nazrix is cool." --Nazrix first, then Darkmage

Edited by - Nazrix on September 6, 2000 3:05:40 PM

Greg Costikyan''s latest article in the September 2000 issue of Game Developer magazine should be required reading here. Check it out if you can, it''s really good.

I like his assertion that a game isn''t a story anymore than music is a story. A game can have story, just as musical ballads can. But a game is it''s own stand alone form of entertainment, and the more you become a good story with an awesome ending (as Landfish was asking about) the less you become a game.

Having said that, a 3 points:

1: I like the idea of a story being generated by AI actions inside a dynamic environment. I''m planning on using it for as backstory and background events in my SF RPG game. But you have to accept losing a great deal of authorship with this scheme. You''ll know who is in your environment, but not when, or where they''ll be (let alone how or why). My game is such that this is fine, but yours might not be.

2: Great stories are great because things happen only in a particular way. This probably won''t be possible with what you''re proposing. Instead, some stories will be pointless shaggy dog tales, some will have illogical conclusions, and some will be driven by inscrutible character behavior, particularly if it''s detailed story you''re after. (Check out Chris Crawford''s work at www.erasmatazz.com to see what I''m talking about... he''s been at this for years).

3: Regarding the MMORPG analogy... right now the inputs and outputs that would allow NPCs to create a good story are far too primitive. Forget AI for a second. Gameplay itself is WAAAAY to rudimentary to support much beyond hack&slash murder tales and fedex knight quests. If the NPCs are to behave in a manner that promotes good story, then what they''re able to do has to be much more sophistocated. I think this calls for a simulationist approach, as other people have noted: Dump the players and NPCs into a world system. Make it so that the town really does get destroyed if you don''t help; or that the environment really does change if you kill the king. But don''t prescript this, make it part of a sim.

Then, what you''ll get will be less of a linear story and more of an immersive world.

--------------------
Just waiting for the mothership...

I think that''s bull. All games that have a beginning, middle and an end have stories. Every one. in order to have a game, you must have a setup, a conflict and a resolution. Guess what? That''s called a story.

Game and story are NOT opposites, though some would like to believe it. Now, GOOD story? That I don''t know.

Even Connect Four!


(As cheesy as that sounds.)

quote:

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Original post by Landfish

I think that's bull.

---

Okay, now who has the attitude? (BTW, which part???)

quote:

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All games that have a beginning, middle and an end have stories. Every one. in order to have a game, you must have a setup, a conflict and a resolution. Guess what? That's called a story.

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So, then, Tetris has a story???

If by story you mean randomly strung together events, without purpose or meaning, that have a definitive start point, intermediary point, and end point... then cool!!!! I can feel a lot better about what I plan to inflict on players in the open ended SF RPG I'm designing!

Seriously, I don't think this is story in the traditional sense.

quote:

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Game and story are NOT opposites, though some would like to believe it. Now, GOOD story? That I don't know.

---

Some games and stories are not opposites, I'll agree. Some games require story to give meaning to your actions. The degree to which gameplay and story elements are intertwined is the degree to which you have a great game with a great story.


--------------------
Just waiting for the mothership...

Edited by - Wavinator on September 6, 2000 8:06:31 PM

I think what it comes down to is this:
Not all games absolutely need a good story to be good. Plenty of great games haven''t had a very well-developed one. Diablo was a well-designed entertaining game. I do think that any game would benefit from the inclusion of a good story.

Thief, for example, has some story. At least more than some games such as Quake. They found fasinating ways of delivering the story without interupting gameplay too...such as overhearing conversations, cut-scenes, etc. I think more story can only make games more interesting.




"NPC's are people too!" --dwarfsoft

"Nazrix is cool." --Nazrix first, then Darkmage

Actually, tetris doesn''t have an end, and hence no middle. It does have a beginning, though.

LF, Do you mean Tetris has no end because every time you complete a level there's another one?





"NPC's are people too!" --dwarfsoft

"`Nazrix is cool.' --Nazrix" --Darkmage

Edited by - Nazrix on September 6, 2000 10:53:24 PM

I think you could argue that Tetris does indeed have an end... Unless you never stop playing, and in that time you never lose... well, you''ll lose.

The same ending every time.

Tetris, like many arcade games, has two possible endings:
Success, or failure. It has a goal - keeping everything going for as long as possible. It does not have a background story though, because there is no motivation for why you should try to attain the goal.

The problem we''re facing is that some games really don''t need a goal to attain, and certainly no motivation to achieve it.
True RPGs ( paper RPGs )don''t have a real goal, nor a real motivation - you make them up for yourself. This is the problem. You want a story, but that''s not the player''s story. It''s the NPC''s story, the world''s story.
The player himself does not have to have a motivation in a free character creation process. He might be able to choose one, and he might be given options towards it, but the point is roleplaying, and if you choose to play a sideline role, and enjoy it, that''s up to you. ( Now of course, few players would be content to play an "observer" to the story in a roleplaying game.

The point I''m making? No matter how good a story you write, no matter how much interactivity with the world, you cannot force the player to be compelled or motivated to participate in the story. In fact, with consequences like the destruction of a town, you might DIScourage the player from participating, because lots of bad things start happening.
In real-life role playing, the DM knows his players. He knows their motivations and what will drive them up the wall. He can tailor the story so that the chance of them participating is larger.
Doing this on a computer is a bigger challenge than any of us GameDev Visionaries are willing to admit. It''s this fact that leads experienced game designers to say that story isn''t necessary in a game. It''s like eye-candy. A few cut-scenes and a vague sense of involvement with something that you probably couldn''t care less about.
The more you "involve" the player, the more chance of him running into a situation where he says "I don''t give a flying fart about this" but is still forced to choose a side. The more chance of him saying "bah, this game is no good.".


So, whichever way you go, you''re doomed. Unless you''re doing tetris.


Give me one more medicated peaceful moment.
~ (V)^|) |<é!t|-| ~
ERROR: Your beta-version of Life1.0 has expired. Please upgrade to the full version. All important social functions will be disabled from now on.

Re: DarkMage139

I deffinity like your style of thinking DM139. You're trying to find ways of making the story more interactive/yes. I think that what your proposing is a great idea. Opening up new avenues for exploration is a lot of fun But i've got to admit that what you're proposing sounds to me like a very amitious task. If i could pass some advice, maybe you could simplify the task somehow and work up on it.

One of the other ways that this can be done is to directly incorporate the story line into the NPC's but leaving out the dynamic areas for now like the ambitions and desires. By just looking at ways to mold the story into the npc's you could then work on ways of changing the story dynamically without losing too much plot.

Also, dealing with npcs ambitions and desires can be a very dangerous task. (I'm just cautioning you so you can work out ways to aviod problems). When you think of an MMORPG you have players who have their own objectives and interests/correct? This can be very annoying to some other players. But it doesn't discourage people playing these games because everytime they play they don't have the same player getting in their way and annoying them with their constant babble and criticisms etc. Now imagine if you hardcoded these characters into your game as npc's. You get the picture, this is what i'm cautioning you about. You will really have to do a lot of planning ahead especially if you try to bite off more than you can chew.

I'm not saying ditch the idea, on the contrary. Imho, i believe that it should be handled very tactfully otherwise you will risk making a brilliant system where npc's have their own personalities but everyone hates them and the idea will go to waste. You could think of this NPC's ambitions idea as a technical concept of game design, well i do anyhow Thanks for sharing it with us.

I love Game Design and it loves me back.

Our Goal is "Fun"!

Edited by - Paul Cunningham on September 7, 2000 3:41:38 AM

Really, you can say that Wolfenstein, or any of its followers, is nothing more than Tetris ... you ahve got to stay alive for as long as you can, it gets harder and harder.
The fact that they added 3D gfx, sfx, music, multiplayer, even a ... uh ... plot, all this is eye candy I you say.

What I''d like to see is us talking about what really is a game. hy do we *play* . And I don''t talk about computer games. I reall talk about games as in kid games. Because in essence, all we do with our adult games, is recreate child games.
I mean, even something as cool as pen&paper RPGs is just really an extension of what we naturally do as kids !!! (And I have played long enough to believe I am right)
Same with Quakelikes (seek and hide, anyone ?), same with RTS (ever played with little soldiers ?), OK, I think you get the point...

Now how could we use this to think a little bit better. And more importantly, can we create a game that would not be based on a child game ?

quote:

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Original post by ahw

Really, you can say that Wolfenstein, or any of its followers, is nothing more than Tetris ... you ahve got to stay alive for as long as you can, it gets harder and harder.
The fact that they added 3D gfx, sfx, music, multiplayer, even a ... uh ... plot, all this is eye candy I you say.

What I''d like to see is us talking about what really is a game. hy do we *play* . And I don''t talk about computer games. I reall talk about games as in kid games. Because in essence, all we do with our adult games, is recreate child games.
I mean, even something as cool as pen&paper RPGs is just really an extension of what we naturally do as kids !!! (And I have played long enough to believe I am right)
Same with Quakelikes (seek and hide, anyone ?), same with RTS (ever played with little soldiers ?), OK, I think you get the point...

Now how could we use this to think a little bit better. And more importantly, can we create a game that would not be based on a child game ?

---

I definity think that this is worthy of starting a new thread over?! It''s far from what DM139 was talking about/yes? But i like what you''re saying, don''t get me wrong ahw. I''m not flaming you ok



I love Game Design and it loves me back.

Our Goal is "Fun"!

This made me think. This is what I thought:

You could have multipler "story lines" going on in the world. The player could get involved in any one of them because of his/her actions. There could be a grand goal where every one of these plots leads to, but the world is free for the player to explore, and perhaps he/she can spend years of game time just exploring the world if he/she wishes, without getting involved in some plot. There could be hundreds of smaller "mini-plots" to keep the player active.

So, basically a free world, but the story or stories would always be there. The player can decide if and when he/she wants to get involved with it. Of course, this would be hard to do and require huge amounts of writing, but that''s what Landfish wants, isn''t it?

-Jussi

Paul : yes I was OT, but what I am saying is that there are several thread right now, all converging towards the same core problem (IMnsHO)