Massively Interview: Spinning Neverwinter's tall tales
Massively: Today we're joined by Neverwinter Senior Content Designer Randy Mosiondz to talk about the game's story. So Randy, how does the story of Neverwinter run parallel to the pen-and-paper campaign and how does it differ? In the cases of its divergeance, why did the team take those paths?
Randy Mosiondz: In Neverwinter we usually try to parallel a lot of the Forgotten Realms story development that Wizards of the Coast has been doing over the last few years. At launch, the majority of our adventure zones were based on stories were being told in the Realms, primarily focusing on Valindra, the Crown of Neverwinter, Gauntlgrym, and the aftermath of the Spellplague. One of our main sources of inspiration was the D&D 4th edition Neverwinter Campaign Guide, which had a number of great story seeds.
We did add a number of new zones that were not directly connected to that book but were still drawn from Realms lore. In a lot of these cases we simply wanted to make sure there was enough variety in storylines, environments, and monsters you encountered to ensure we covered all of the high points of the D&D adventuring experience. Whenever we do this, we consult with Wizards of the Coast on a weekly basis to ensure these storylines match up to their expectations of what fits in the Forgotten Realms.
Players are notorious for skipping quest text boxes and losing track of the story due to multiple quests and a fragmented storytelling system. How is Neverwinter trying to deliver a cohesive story that a majority of players can track?
In every adventure zone we create we try to make the story self-contained to the zone itself. It might have a larger context as it relates to the larger Neverwinter story, but never to the point where you have to play every zone to understand everything. Think of Neverwinter adventure zones as a series of pen-and-paper D&D modules; they might have some links between them, but are largely self-contained stories. This makes them a very accessible series of shorter storylines, each of which you can experience over the course of a few evenings and come to a satisfying conclusion.
Are there systems in the game or plans for systems to help players "catch up" on missed lore or to piece together the story so far?
Every adventure zone we introduce has a collection of lore entries associated with it that automatically go into the player's journal as you explore the zone and complete the quests. These entries provide additional context for the story of the area. As you explore the length and breadth of the game, you end up with a small novel's worth of story snippets that you can catch up on at your leisure.
We don't currently have a way for players to catch up on missed lore other than to roll up a new character and play through the game again -- which is still a pretty fun solution!
Other than text boxes, what tools do you use to deliver narrative in the game?
Quest text is just a starting point for storytelling in Neverwinter, and really in any virtual world. Any story needs to be reinforced by the environment the players are exploring, or players will lose a sense of the context and immersion.
When you receive the quest for the quest-giver, you hear audio playing to match the story text. You can see other friendly ambient characters talking or playing out behaviors, providing supporting story details. Looking around you might find objects like scrolls and books you can interact with that provide additional lore snippets, which are recorded in your in-game journal. As you move around the world, the environment is staged to support the narrative as well. Coming to the directed quest area you see props and encounters that give further context to your quest objective. And on return of the quest, you sometimes see the results of your quest acted out.
For example, here's a story I set up in Vellosk (spoilers!). The Grey Wolf Tribe of barbarians have embraced lycanthropy and sided with the shadowy Netherese. A faction of the Grey Wolf Tribe known as the Forsworn has split off, rejecting the pact the rest of the tribe made with the Netherese. You are asked by one of the Forsworn in their camp to recover sacred relics from three missing brothers who were presumed captured, tortured, and killed by werewolves.
As you move around the Forsworn camp, you the guards warn you of the danger of their werewolf brethren. As you continue down the trail further into Vellosk, you start encountering hunting parties of werewolves. As you get to the last place the brothers were seen, a lore pop-up and neighborhood fly-up talks about the "Stones of Sacrifice," and you see a large henge-like stone structure with a sacrificial altar in the center. There, you encounter a tougher-looking werewolf talking about more sacrifices to "The Dark Hunter." Searching around the area, you find three of skeletons bound near the stones, one run through with a spear, another shot with arrows, and a third gutted by a sword. You recover relics from each of them, and then return them to the Forsworn camp. There, you walk to their ceremonial burial area, past a woman weeping over a covered body.
Finally, you place the relics on the main stone. As you do so, the ghosts of the three brothers appear, kneel, and thank you for honoring their deaths. Even if players skip the quest text entirely, they get a pretty good sense of the story being told by the visuals and accompanying lore.
What's your personal favorite tale in Neverwinter?
I think I'd have to go with the Spellplague story arcs. There's a lot of great story-telling and characters that went into that story, along with a lot of distinct environments. The first part starts in an earlier-game story arc set in the city streets of Neverwinter itself and involves a magical plague transforming people into monsters. The second part is a higher-level story arc that sends you down to the stunningly visual Chasm area of the city, a surreal pit of madness. It has a bit of an H.P. Lovecraft vibe to it. If you haven't tried it yet, I recommend it!
What is your opinion on using voice artists in MMOs versus not? What are the pros and cons of doing this?
I personally quite like the inclusion of voice artists in MMOs, mainly because it is another immersive element to draw players into the story. Anyone can read quest text, but a talented voice actor brings those words to life, providing a much better emotional impact.
The main challenge is ensuring a consistent and quality experience across several localized releases. Since Neverwinter is a global game (available in North America, South America, Europe, Russia, and now China), we have a lot of languages to translate. One of my jobs is to compile text and help provide direction and context for our voice actors. This means being efficient with text additions and revisions is critical during development when it has to be localized and voiced.
How do you elevate a story beyond the stale quest mechanics (kill ten rats, FedEx, escort, click the glowies missions)?
As much as these elements are maligned, any directed quest in any virtual world can be broken down into one of these core mechanics. That's because in any virtual world, you have to be able to communicate goals to players in a way they can understand, give the players a means to interact with the world, as well as provide success or failure criteria that can be interpreted by the game.
But these quest mechanics are nothing more than tools. They appear stale when they are implemented mechanically instead of being given a greater meaning with the context of the game world or narrative. The trick is using quest mechanics to leverage the elements of the story you're trying to tell and the gameplay you are trying to provide, not letting the game mechanics drive the story.
Here's another story example: You come across the ghost of an Elf maiden weeping amongst the ruins of a desolate swamp you are exploring. She says that ages ago she was to meet her lover at this spot to be married, but he never arrived. She senses his spirit his somewhere in the swamp, but he never appears to her. Being bound to the ruins, she cannot leave to search for him. Leaving the ruins to search the swamp, you encounter wisps seeking to drain your life-force. Fighting through them, you discover a skeleton with two wedding rings on a chain around his neck.
The faint ghost of an Elf warrior appears. He tells you that long ago, he was to meet his lover to marry but was overwhelmed and killed by wisps that drained his life force. He asks you to recover his essence from the wisps so that he may finish his journey and rejoin his lover. Encountering the wisps once again, you slay them and gather the ghostly essence of the Elf warrior. Returning to him, you see the Elf warrior absorb his lost essence, restoring his ghostly form. He asks you to carry the chain with two wedding rings back to the Elf maiden. Doing so, you witness the two rejoined at last. They thank you before going to their final rest, the warrior leaving you a ghostly elven sword as a remembrance.
Taking the aforementioned quest mechanics, you can break the story down to: 1. Get clickie quest from quest-giver; 2. Trigger the wisp encounter on the way to the quest objective; 3. Click on chain quest clickie to spawn new quest-giver; 4. Get a kill/collect quest to gather seven Elven essences from wisps; 5. Click on chain quest clickie to deliver essence; 6. Courier quest to deliver chain with rings to original quest-giver; 7. Get loot!
Mechanically, this is what it breaks down to provide useful game guidance for players going through this story. Assuming the game designer can deliver on the visual storytelling aspect, the game mechanics don't diminish the emotional impact provided by the context of the narrative.
What lessons have the designers and writers learned about delivering the narrative in Neverwinter?
I think the main lessons we learned are:
Know your audience. Neverwinter is a D&D Forgotten Realms game. We know that a lot of fans love D&D and the Realms, so we do our best to stay true to the decades of story established there. Weekly meetings with Wizards of the Coast ensure that we are meeting their vision of how the Realms are being developed in the future as well.
Know your game. Neverwinter is an action-MMORPG. With the focus on action and social interaction, brevity is key when it comes to narrative. While we love telling cool stories of fantasy adventure, we also have to make sure that most storytelling we provide is done through visuals, audio, and the occasional lore snippets, not through walls of text. This keeps the action quotient high and keeps players focused on teaming up and exploring the world we built for them. We hope they enjoy the experience!
Thank you for sharing!
When readers want the scoop on a launch or a patch (or even a brewing fiasco), Massively goes right to the source to interview the developers themselves. Be they John Smedley or Chris Roberts or anyone in between, we ask the devs the hard questions. Of course, whether they tell us the truth or not is up to them!
