To start with some inspiring words from member Oddjob: (from MMOPOS thread gdesign forum) and follow them up with my interpretation of this! These show a fresh light on single-player games. Oddjob:"Socialization is crippled aside from flocking together for defense without the underlaying social structures of family, clan and country. Familial groups are less than meaningless without real property and economic underpinnings. Wars are trite without passion and conviction and, oh yes, greed. Without player character rulers and factions - what's there to talk about? NPC orcs spawning? A fancy new magic item? What's the point of having power if there's nothing to do with it but get more power? What's heroism or sacrifice without death? Real death?" ================================================================= -Ketchaval develops the theme: This asks, what is the MEANING behind something in the game, can it be made to matter to the player. Whilst it (may not) suggest that the player can play as a predefined member of a family, it suggests that they could enter as a rookie into a criminal Family.. entering the tempestuous relationships of the characters as they cheat on each other and try to steal from them. Or of fearing the devastation that a civil war may bring to a country, knowing that many of the people will be slaughtered or "forced" to slaughter kinsmen .. just because they have different beliefs (I'm, not condoning this, but it is what happens ie. see American / Spanish civil war etc). Where the land scape may be devastated and land-mines left to evilly blight the lives of families for decades to come . Where neighbours gossiping about their neighbours extra-marital affairs may bring about violent repurcussions. Where the tribal "justice" may be cruel and is definitely to be feared. If you return to the tribe having stolen the chieftains daughter, you will both be punished.... Where greed really leads to backstabbing and anger. Can we start to create systems which contain these things, not trying to force them onto the player in the background, but having them as real parts of the game-system ? Edited by - Ketchaval on 10/17/00 6:37:16 PM

Wavinator, Put the Resource down.. and BACK AWAY SLOWLY !

I'm suggesting that more is put into the WORLD where the player is, that the player can get involved in that things have POWERFUL MEANINGS.. Ie. You steal the chieftain's daughter, and you get your legs mutilated.. and she gets locked away and married off to the oldest son. Based as far as possible on things that have EMOTIONAL CONTENT... IE. Like being wanted by the Mafia boss for f*dwing up a hit-assignment...

I am suggesting that we think in BROADER TERMS OF EMOTION & REPRESENTATION, how can we make this situation have emotional impact on the player.. even if it doesn't actually affect them personally (or their resources). Like reading about tragic accidents in a newspaper or a novel.

That we try to think of society and situation based situations where the characters & events have real and "obvious" links between each other.

Thus put aside the thoughts of resources for one minute, until we have to return to them to work out how to get things into the game. Think about the situations & characters and potential emotions and then work out what qualities the characters will need to have to get the player emotionaly involved over time.

Of course you need to work out how to portray and setup these situations& characters in terms of resources / audio-visual content. Ie. Portraying the gangster boss as tough and cruel.. through speech etc.. and setting up conditions for when he will have the player hunted down (IF doublecross=1 ) etc.


(Amended the first topic post to show which were my thoughts & arguments to develop from Oddjob's cool posting.).

Edited by - Ketchaval on October 17, 2000 7:16:00 PM