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Yeah this place has been a little dead lately, hasn''t it?

INDEED!

Yeah, why doesn''t someone start one of those forum games up again? Where everyone writes their own part of a story?

Those were pretty fun.

I guess we''ll just have to wait for S&S to return and bring back some life ^_^

Or maybe you could try and help me think of a good plot to my idea for an MMORPG, because I want to try and make a plot to they game were most others have failed. If you know wot i mean?

GRARG!
HULK SMASH USELESS POST!

quote:

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Original post by Fake_Impersonation
Or maybe you could try and help me think of a good plot to my idea for an MMORPG, because I want to try and make a plot to they game were most others have failed. If you know wot i mean?

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Here''s why I think plots in MMORPG''s don''t work:
There are a couple of ways to do them:
1)Respawn locations and such change slowly to represent changing troop movements, monster populations, etc. The problem with this is that there isn''t really a plot. This is usually combined with the next method.
2)Have everyone participate in the same plot. This is dissatisfying for the simple reason that the plot is usually uninteresting, slow, you''ve gone through it 10 times before(with different characters), and/or everyone knows everything to do. There''s no mystery. It''s slow because you have to stretch a story throughout the many levels that characters achieve.

Plots in general don''t work because they don''t leverage multiplayer. You''re not likely to have 10 players get together and have each say:
"I shot Evil Badguy in the head with an arrow!"
"Wow, I had to sneak into their base and cut the ropes to the drawbridge so that the army could get in."
"Cool, I had to rescue a hostage from the castle. I wonder if we both snuck in the same way."
"Yeah? I was just a newbie at the time, so I just hacked everyone I could see with my battleaxe."
"I was a scout during that battle, so I only killed one orc. I was supposed to be scouting to give advance warning of any reinforcements. None ever came."
"I was a scout too! But my mission ended differently; there were about 100 orcs marching to reinforce. I knew I couldn''t take them all on, so I ran back to tell my superior"
"You were both scouts! Wow. There must be a lot of demand for scouts. I was a scout, too. While you found the flank, I found the vanguard. There were 1000 orcs in it."
"Oh, I remember that battle. I didn''t actually take part in it, but I did have some small influence on it. My task was to seduce the captain''s mistress, so that she''d come to my cabin the night before the battle, where some rebels took her away. I hear the commander had a crush on her and didn''t want her hurt."
"You killed Evil Badguy! Grarrr!!!!"
"Well. This is interesting. I WAS Evil Badguy!"

Anybody have any idea how such a thing could be implemented in an MMORPG?

Imagine having to coordinate a typical AD&D gaming group, but of 100 people strewn across time zones. Pretty difficult. Most MMORPG "plots" are just invasions of different critters that somehow ties to the "big special event". For anything as interactive as you want, your staffing levels would have to be off the charts.

My completely unsubstatiated theory about MMORPGs is that their popularity will wane in a couple of years, leading to a marked resurgence of interest in the solid single-player PC game experience.

I think that MMOGs are so popular now because they still have WOW-Factor going for them.

Their popularity will wane, but the internet will have advanced such that basic multiplayer games will be much more reliable. We''ll have the equivalent of complex single-player stories in small multiplayer systems (4 to 16 players).

George D. Filiotis
Are you in support of the ban of Dihydrogen Monoxide? You should be!

I like the small multiplayer theory. Having a game with 4-8 players introduces some interesting storytelling possibilities. I suppose BioWare is trying to approach this with Neverwinter Nights, although their scale is still rather large.

I dunno, I think the increasing availability of broadband will actually make them more popular. I played EverQuest on 56k and lag != immersion. I''m playing Dark Age of Camelot on high speed and man, I could get lost in that world.

Maybe. My claim is not based on lack of braodband access, but rather a belief that the type of gameplay offered by the MMORPG will only have a limited attractiveness to gamers.

But, this is just my opinion and not based on any knowledge I may have or research I may have done. I could be completely wrong.

I wonder how many hardcore gamers have not tried a MMORPG. I haven''t. For some reason, it just doesn''t interest me.

I agree too but is would be nice to see a story line in the game ven if it is not interactive, because a plot with 500 people trying to do the same thing wouldn't work. Say now you had to blow up a well for some stupid reason all the other players should not see this because not only then will the plot not work but it probally would cause lag of about 2 hours. lol.
If anyone has see legend of mir that has a simplistic story line which they just release as movies from thier site.
Who knows maybe one day we'll have games where a group of people can gather round and create their own story line to it. I think FF 11 will be close as we'll see to it.

PS Hulk do you mean me if so this topic is more useless then my post.

Notice is brought a little life into the board.

[edited by - Fake_Impersonation on April 9, 2002 5:13:12 AM]

i menat hundley.
Boink?
Oh come ON!

I haven''t tried a MMORPG for two reasons actualy. Disinterest and Laziness. Fundamentally, its not much different from the old MUD days, save some new rules and prettier, less text-based pictures.

As to why they will probably not work, trying to get a story going would be like trying to elect a conservative to office in Boston. Too many people are just against the idea. However, theres a real life example of a ongoing story that the audience takes part in. And I''m a bit ashamed that I''m using this example as a possible save for the MMORPG. WWF. Apparently, theres a pretty heavy, though intellectually simple, story going on there that changes based on how many cheers, signs, and merchandice circulates around the crowd. Though, it seems a bit odd. There would have to be a set of adept GMs who actualy direct the story around some group of elites, and the players interaction in this story would probably be related to how many quests get performed in respective guilds, or which elites end up getting assasinated while travelling outside of their domains...

-> Will Bubel
-> Machine wash cold, tumble dry.

Well, that''s an interesting example. Another one is, and I''m probably not going to be using the correct terminology so forgive me, but live theatre where the actors ad lib their lines. You know, or comedy shows where they ask the audience for a topic and then run with it. In a sense these are ''interactive''. The problem (or one of them) is that in those cases you are basically an observer. I mean, it''s not like you''re actually in the ring, telling the wrestler what to do. But in a game, you would be.

Well, its pretty subjective as to what form of involvement the players are perceiving. I mean, elections don''t seem like involvement, but they seem to be the be-all-end-all of governments. Though, with political involvement, you have other factors involved, petition, demonstration, corruption. The only real factor that is very neccessary in a MMORPG that takes advantage of this would have to be direct involvement by the GMs, rather than just going around and busting playerkillers and pathfinding exploiters. It''d have to be more along the lines of GMs randomly exploring the world on their own, perhaps being followed by a loyal set of NPCs, and being fully aware of the fact that a group of Oldbies could approach and either make a down payment on a change in the story, or put an end to this branch of the story. As for keeping the player informed as to what happened while they were off in the real world, a newspaper/email or something. Basically, this is the type of deal where the developers can''t just unleash bugfixes every couple of weeks to the server and then rake in the subscriptions, it requires some heavy roleplaying on their part as well.

-> Will Bubel
-> Machine wash cold, tumble dry.