storytelling
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The fourth pillar of fear: Ragnar Tørnquist dishes on story in The Secret World
BioWare and ArenaNet aren't the only MMO studios to be beating on the drums of storytelling lately -- Funcom feels just as strongly that good stories not only have a place in MMOs but are essential to making memorable games. In a new post over at The Secret World, Ragnar Tørnquist attempts to whet our appetite for a main course of storytelling. "The story in The Secret World is a giant jigsaw puzzle. That's really the only way to describe it. There are thousands of pieces scattered all over the game world, both figuratively and geographically, and as you play the game, you are actively uncovering -- unearthing -- the stories, large and small, that form the enormous tapestry of a backstory that goes back aeons." All aspects of The Secret World are "infused with story," Tørnquist promises; the game will connect players to the world through context and meaning. He hopes that TSW's mysteries will keep players coming back to the game due to our insatiable desire to know the secrets behind them. He also hints that some of these stories will feature tough decisions and painful consequences: "Joining the ranks of the shadow-masters, it's in your best interest to play by their rules, follow their agenda, ensure that the secret world remains a secret, and if that means making compromises and allowing people to get hurt... Well. No one ever said being a hero would be easy." These mysteries will come to light during many of the player missions, which we heard about yesterday. While we wait for the launch, Tørnquist encourages us to check out the elements of story that Funcom's released already such as fake websites and other ARG activities.
World of WarCrafts: Guide to fan fiction
World of WarCrafts spotlights art and creativity by WoW players, including fan art, cooking, comics, cosplay, music, fan fiction and more. Sample the whole spectrum on our Arts and Crafts in WoW page. Of all the various and assorted Warcraft-related crafting that people do, there is none quite as prolific as the world of Warcraft fan fiction. Artwork, jewelry making and knitted crafts require at least some small amount of artistic talent, cake and cookie decorating take at least a rudimentary knowledge of baking basics, and things like music, home decorating, and other projects require creators to know an incredible amount of information about their various areas of expertise. But with fan fiction, all it takes is a piece of paper and a pen (or a computer and a word processing program) and your imagination.
Storyboard: You are not a storyteller
I know that some of you are looking at that title in disbelief. Others are probably just reading already, figuring that in a few lines I'm going to set up what the central joke is and explain how I'm subverting the title -- you know, a nice eye-catching title that draws everyone in, then a paragraph or two where I explain how I'm not being serious. That's not what we're doing here. That title is one hundred percent accurate. If you are a roleplayer, you are not a storyteller. Close, maybe, even in the same basic food group, but you're not a storyteller. I've spent the better part of the last several months talking about how to work on telling a story, developing a character, all of that stuff. But it occurred to me that I was leaving out a very important part of the equation, something that I was aware of in the back of my mind -- and many of you likely are aware of, as well -- but I never said outright. I'm saying it right now. Roleplaying is not storytelling, and if you're trying to be a storyteller, something is not going right.
The Daily Grind: Why don't you like roleplaying?
If you're playing an MMO, you're roleplaying. No, you might not be peppering your speech with authentic Klingon or trying to simulate the dialogue of a nigh-immortal elf, but you're still pretending to be someone other than yourself on the screen. And yet roleplaying remains an intensely divisive force in MMOs; there are players who swear by it and players who go out of their way to interfere with it. Even if you fall into the former camp, odds are pretty much absolute that you've spent good chunks of time cursing at one particularly obnoxious storyline or another. Whether or not you take part in large-scale roleplaying, today we ask -- what don't you like about it? If you're a non-participant, does it seem like too much work for too little reward? If you RP regularly, do you dislike the inter-player drama that so frequently results? If you're actively opposed, do you feel it takes development time away from more important game elements? Or do you have some other dislike completely unrelated to any of that? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Hyperspace Beacon: Jef's soapbox smells like a wet Wookiee
Disclaimer: This column is entirely the opinion of the Hyperspace Beacon's writer and does not necessarily reflect that of Massively as a whole. If you're afraid of opinions other than your own, remember: fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering -- whatever that means. So, maybe you should skip this column if this opinion is too much for you to handle. I know in my last column I said I would continue the story of Nomi Sunrider, and I will, just not this week. I felt Jef's Soapbox article about the hype surrounding Star Wars: The Old Republic required some sort of response. The denotation of "hype" doesn't bother me. Stimulating the audience's excitement about a game is kind of the job of a game's producers. Teasing people with parts of the story or gameplay is common. It's the connotation of "hype" that drives me bats when people apply it to STWOR. Nearly every person, who uses "hype" when talking about SWTOR, seems to indicate that BioWare and LucasArts are attempting to sell the audience something that is not truly what it is. Do they tease? Sure, but the BioWare PR managers are not selling you death sticks. I contest that the people who are selling the death sticks are the fans. Follow after the break and I will explain.
EVE Evolved: Death of an Industrialist, part 2
Of all the things that define EVE Online, it's the stories of criminality that stand out the most. The criminal underworld of New Eden is so deeply ingrained in EVE that CCP even made a selling point of it in the latest official trailer. Last week, I began to tell the true tale of one EVE pilot's thirst for revenge and the corporate infiltration techniques he used to get close to his target. In this week's conclusion of the story, Scott's plans for revenge come to fruition. But is Scott really the victim he believes himself to be, or has greed blinded him to what he's doing? If you haven't read part 1 of the story, skip back to read last week's EVE Evolved column before reading on. Newbies again Once in Zeeqo's corp, Scott and his crew began the slow task of setting their target up for a colossal fall. Simply destroying Zeeqo's mining barge could be a swift and fitting retribution, but Scott had a much harsher punishment in mind. Zeeqo would be made to pay for his mistake several times over. The plan for retribution hinged on Zeeqo's weekend freighter runs to Jita, a time at which he flew his most expensive and indefensible ship. This gave the three infiltrators only five days to befriend their target and work out how best to capitalise on his weekly haul.
SWTOR devs dive deep in Jedi design in this week's dispatch
The character type that will likely be played the most in Star Wars: The Old Republic will be the Jedi. BioWare has been conscious of this from the early stages of the game. This is evident in the fact that there are two distinct Jedi classes: the knight and the consular. Yet, the designers have been the most tight-lipped about these two classes. They have said this is because they wish to get it just right before talking about it. But with this week's Fan Friday, things have changed. On the official SWTOR website, a new Developer Dispatch called Designing the Light Side has popped up. In the five-and-a-half-minute video, SWTOR writers, artists, and animators discuss the most important things it takes to create the two light side factions. "We want to give players the opportunity to be the heroic Jedi like Luke Skywalker or the darker, more avenging type of Jedi like his father, Anakin," Hall Hood, a senior writer, explains in the video. On which side of the moral spectrum do you fall? Are you a hero-of-the-ages light sider, or a ends-justifies-the-means gray Jedi? Watch the video after the break and let us know.
EVE Evolved: Death of an industrialist
It's often said that the EVE Online universe is a dark and harsh place, the market overflowing with con-artists and the skies filled with pirates looking for some easy prey. The sandbox style of New Eden enables emergent gameplay like market manipulation, corporate infiltration, spying and theft. When faced with the choice, some players choose to be ruthless outlaws who will stop at nothing to further their own goals. Political puppet-masters pull the strings on the alliance war machines from behind the scenes, spies infiltrate corporations to gather intelligence, and thieves plot their way to riches. The latest official game trailer makes a big point of this side of EVE, telling an incredible story of revenge and theft that closely mirrors the reality of New Eden. As if to highlight the point made by the trailer, this week EVE player Bad Bobby confirmed that he'd stolen a total of 850 billion ISK from players in the investment market. Concluding a plan set in motion years ago, Bobby pulled off the theft last week of his supposedly secured Titans4U company. In keeping with this recent theme of theft and corruption, this week's EVE Evolved is a story of revenge, corporate infiltration, social deception and utter destruction. I've embellished the story in places and names have been changed to protect the privacy of all those involved, but the events described are real. In this week's article, I begin to tell the very real tale of an EVE player's revenge -- a precision strike against an industrialist who made one fatal mistake.
Choose Your Own Adventure available for iPhone as U-Ventures
If you, like me, were a big scifi/fantasy reader at a young age, you probably remember the "Choose Your Own Adventure" series. It was a series of books in which, every chapter or so, you could make a choice that affected the story, and you were then prompted to turn to a certain page to continue the story after that choice. Edward Packard was the original author of that series, and he's now teamed up with an iPhone app company to create U-Ventures, a throwback iPhone application that works as an interactive, e-book style Choose You Own Adventure. The first book is called "Return to the Cave of Time" (after the first book in the original series), and just like the old series, it offers up a set of second-person branching paths. Unfortunately, at US$3.99, the app is pretty expensive. Reviews say that there are only about 15 minutes of content to go through here, and while the old books were short, there are a lot of other interactive storytelling options on the App Store in the form of games and other e-books. But as a retro return to the old form, it's a nice taste of what's possible. I'm hoping that Packard will update the idea a little bit and make it a little more iPhone-friendly next time. Or, ... you could just roll your own. Our own Victor Agreda wrote about iPod-friendly CYOA books a long time ago. Download some of those onto your iPod, and you could be right back in those old pre-video game days of interactive storytelling. [via Slashdot]
Hyperspace Beacon: Forced species
The Hyperspace Beacon is a weekly guide and discussion by Larry Everett about the yet-to-be-released game Star Wars: The Old Republic. This week I was excited about the new species introduced to Star Wars: The Old Republic, and the lore-lover in me is still extremely elated despite what some of the commenters said on the announcement article. However, I've had time to think about a few things, and the seed of internal conflict sowed itself in my fanboy psyche. It did not break me, but I do question some of the decisions BioWare has made regarding species-to-class choices. I do not like to draw attention to negative posts because I believe arguments can be made without berating other people and defiling the English language. But one of the posts in the recent space-combat-on-rails article reflected some of the fans' sentiment towards the game when the poster said this about BioWare's developers: "They have their formula and every new game is just fresh paint." Although I don't think it is exactly that simple, there is a bit of truth in that statement. But that does not, by any means, destine this game for failure (right, Final Fantasy?). BioWare does have a formula, but when it sticks to this formula, it usually produces something very successful. BioWare's mantra is "story." The company has chanted this from the first day SWTOR was announced, yet for me something still seems a bit amiss. Upon examining past BioWare games, I am not quite sure the reasons for tying species to a specific class actually make sense -- at least not for the reasons the company offers. Perhaps when you follow me through the rest of this article you can help me resolve this inner conflict.
SDCC 2010: A SWTOR Managing Editor who doesn't solve problems by killing all the kittens
We all know that know that story is the fourth pillar for The Old Republic. We also know BioWare has the reputation for having some of the most compelling stories in the gaming industry. In fact, story is written into its mission statement: "BioWare's vision is to deliver the best story-driven games in the world." So it is no surprise at all that when the team came to Comic-Con this past weekend, it consisted of mostly writers. Massively's Dan O'Halloran nabbed the Managing Editor on SWTOR, Alexander Freed, for a conversation. Freed has scribed much of the story and dialogue for this epic MMO, as well as been the writer for the exciting adventures of Teneb Kel in The Blood of the Empire webcomic. Continue on after the break to catch Alexander Freed's insight into what the different types of quests will be available in SWTOR, what compelling choices players have to make, and what it takes to write for a project of this magnitude.
Hyperspace Beacon: Blaster at my side
Hey, kids, the name's Han Solo. I've been asked to step in here because I know a thing or two about smuggling. I know many of you are lookin' to jump into this line of work, and I'm going to tell you right now: it ain't gonna be easy. You gotta live by your guts, kids. You hav'ta be smooth, and you can't let crazy green Rodians get under your skin. In fact, if a Rodian does come lookin' for you, I suggest you shoot him first. It'll save you some trouble in the long run, but don't forget to pay for the mess. Maybe I should start with some of the greatest smugglers out there. That should help detour you from the insanity of this profession. Although none of 'em is as good as I am, Lando Calrissian, Dash Rendar, and even an old smuggler named Hylo Visz made their marks on history. Their lives were wrought with risky maneuvers, near-misses, and some damned good luck. So I guess if you think you've got what it takes, keep reading -- I'll meet you after the break. [Thank you to Lois van Baarle for letting us use her artwork for the main banner. You can see more of her work at Loish.net.]
Disillusionment with MMOs
Because I never studied nor considered studying psychology, you may doubt my words, but I will still tell you that many people go through a phase in life in which things become less shiny for them. What, there really is no Santa Claus? Those awesome space battles on TV are just tiny plastic miniatures hanging from fishing-line? World of Warcraft didn't invent Naga? Sooner or later the curtain will be pulled back on something you found new or fascinating in your life. Losing that sense of excitement from something you thought was different or new can leave a gaping hole of disillusionment. The short history of MMOs is not immune to providing plenty of room for players to become disillusioned. Like television, movies, and books, MMOs don't use 100% new content that developers invented out of thin air. I've been on many MMO forums and have seen players at different stages of disillusionment seemingly frothing at the mouth about being sick of elves in fantasy MMOs, and accusing one MMO of stealing a name or even a similar-sounding name from an MMO they would defend as "more original." The fact is that most concepts and ideas have already been done, and it can just be hard to deal with. Who doesn't get a little disillusioned when he grows up and finds out his dad or mom really isn't the smartest or strongest person in the world? If I haven't disappointed you enough then follow along as I spoil even more of your favorite MMOs -- but hopefully I can also show you that disillusionment isn't the end.
Lost Pages of Taborea: It's all about the lore
I thought long and hard about how to approach a story-based post for Runes of Magic. In the end, I felt it was best not to write on the lore, but about the lore. To sit down and lay out what happens for you felt like cheating you of actual game play. I didn't want to write what I thought would essentially be a long list of spoilers, but rather try and paint a picture of Taborea. Something that could hopefully act as a book review -- in a way -- to let you know the flavor of the world without spelling it all out. I applaud Runewaker for the work they've done to include a rich amount of story into RoM. They're a Taiwanese developer making an MMORPG for a largely Western audience. Then, the German publisher Frogster has to deal with localizing everything into English. Those are no easy hurdles to jump and still end up with a story as good as the one Runewaker and Frogster give us. Before translating even begins, they have to deal with imagining a Western tale. RoM has become very popular and Runewaker is no doubt steadily growing their company, but they are still fairly small in relation to some larger Western developers and have to work that much harder to get the quality job done.
Wrath Retrospective: Lore and the art of storytelling
With the final content patch of this expansion on our doorstep and Cataclysm following close behind, we'll be taking the next several weeks to look back on Wrath of the Lich King and everything that made it what it is, for better or for worse, in WotLK Retrospective. Wrath of the Lich King wasn't just an expansion -- it was an experiment in progressive storytelling featuring story lines and lore that we haven't seen since Warcraft III. While Burning Crusade tackled new issues and races, it did little to further any of the Azeroth stories we'd seen in the earlier Warcraft games; Wrath took a step backwards to move the prior stories forward. Along with this change in direction, we saw the introduction of a few things that hadn't been seen in Warcraft before that made a large change to the way we view stories and quests in World of Warcraft, and a re-introduction of many of the heroes and prominent figures that we'd only caught glimpses of in vanilla. Today, we're going to look at Wrath lore: what worked, what knocked it out of the park and what failed to impress. Phasing Quite possibly the biggest technical advancement in storytelling was the introduction of the phasing mechanic. This allowed players to play through quests, and as the stories progressed, so did the world around the players, giving a new and unique feel to story line progression. Suddenly, instead of playing through a zone with no indication that you'd made any changes to the status quo, the world changed around you -- the chain of events in Conquest Hold in Grizzly Hills and Frosthold in the Storm Peaks both actually ended with NPCs being replaced as a direct result of player interaction. In the quest chain of The Battle for the Undercity, both Alliance and Horde players are teleported into a phased version of Orgrimmar, designed as a vehicle to further the story line -- and as a way for Alliance players to interact with Thrall without being attacked.
Storyboard: Everybody starts somewhere
Welcome back to another edition of Storyboard! This week, and for the next couple of weeks, we're going to be talking about generating characters. It's a far cry from building characters in a pen-and-paper game, naturally -- MMOs don't tend to require you to make choices about things like specialization until you've been playing for some time, and the generation system isn't tremendously open. And we're not focused on working out the best possible stat combination in this column, anyway. We're concerned about the actual person behind the (eventual) Sword of Godslaying. So where to start? Let's just assume you're staring at a basic character creation screen and trying to figure out who you're going to be adopting as your newest persona. There are three basic starting points for developing a character that work in nearly every game, and they let you start off with a character who might not be fully realized, but certainly can feel that way. We'll look at each of them in turn today and focus on the specifics in the coming weeks.
Erickson dishes dialog choices for Star Wars: The Old Republic
Bioware has touted the fourth missing pillar from MMOs since the the first video introduction of Star Wars: The Old Republic: Story. This concept of great character development and plot on top of an intense combat experience has been Bioware's staple since, well, forever. Player choice propels every Bioware story in a very dynamic way, so we have no doubt Bioware will deliver. In fact, earlier this week we reported that SWTOR will boast the equivalent of 50 novels worth of dialog -- an insane amount of possible storytelling, to say the least. Yesterday, Daniel Erickson gave us a bit more to chew on in the SWTOR official forum. In the developer walk-through, we witnessed the dialog system in action. Not only will one player lead the conversation, but others in his group will be able to chime in as well, thus intensifying the story. How this system works has not been defined, yet players have high hopes for it. What Erickson did touch on in his post is the idea of choice. He tells us that dialog choice will differ in each class. A Sith will naturally want to choose the darker choice in the dialog tree, whereas the smuggler will naturally want the funny or flirty choice. Those choices will usually be the top option, but, Erickson says, "Want to be a hardcase Smuggler? A wry action hero Bounty Hunter? A charming Inquisitor? Choices are much broader than just good and evil." Multiple options will be available for those players who want to explore different paths for their character.
Storyboard: Best practices
Roleplaying is a finicky business. If organizing endgame raid groups is like herding cats, organizing coherent roleplaying is like herding cats with even more ego. And no promise of rewards. And with only other players to provide a threat. And you're herding them with a Nerf bat that many of them are more inclined to just play with. And you have to balance it around activities such as endgame raiding. It takes a lot to get roleplaying going and keep it going, is what we're getting at. It's a testament to how passionately people feel about roleplaying that, despite all of this, it happens on a consistent basis and usually without too much (unintentional) drama. But it's hard work for everyone involved, and that just inspires people to be more passionate about it as an aggregate. Hence the creation of a column entirely devoted to roleplayers and the careful art of crafting, playing, and working through characters.
Massively's EVE Online Tyrannis contest, part 3: Fiction-writing contest
Over the past two weeks we've been running some awesome weekly contests for readers to win EVE Online game time courtesy of CCP Games. In celebration of the upcoming launch of EVE's Tyrannis expansion, we gave away 10 PLEX in our planet screenshot contest two weeks ago. Last week, we ran a caption competition with a 15 PLEX prize total and received a flood of entries. So many in fact that we're still debating which captions should win a prize. The winners of that contest will be posted as an update to the second contest post within the next few days and the winners will all be notified via email. This week marks the last week of our Tyrannis contest trilogy and to end on a high-note we're giving away a whopping 25 PLEX. Ten top prizes of two PLEX are available and a further five runner-up entrants will get one PLEX each. To enter, all you have to do is write a short piece of fiction based on the planets and moons of New Eden and submit it to the comments on this post. Entries are limited to 200 words or less as we're sure to get a huge number of entries and we want to give each one the full attention it deserves. Your entry can take the form of a short story, a poem or any other type of written fiction. Prizes will be awarded based on creativity, writing style and presentation. As with the previous two competitions, this contest is open to readers from any country. UPDATE: Entry is now closed. We are now reading through the submissions and picking winners! UPDATE 2: Winners have been selected! The list of winners has been added to the end of this post. Each winner will be contacted via email to arrange delivery of their prizes. Skip past the cut for the contest rules and full submission guidelines.
TERA compiles Elleon's Journal, starts Day 2
Lore and storytelling often seem like lost arts in the majority of today's MMORPGs, as the games (and the players) tend to focus heavily on advancement and item collecting. TERA, the upcoming action fantasy title from Bluehole Studio and En Masse Entertainment, looks to change that equation with compelling world and character lore designed to flesh out the game's unique setting. Lead writer David Noonan has been delivering story updates via Twitter for some time, effectively using the microblogging service to disseminate the journal entries of a TERA NPC known as Elleon. "I want to make something absolutely clear at the outset: Elleon isn't tweeting. That would be wrong, wrong, wrong. But we are using Twitter to distribute Elleon's journal entries, which will tell a story (and give you a peek at game content) over the coming weeks and months. Twitter is just the distribution technique; Elleon isn't going to retweet, reply, or anything like that," Noonan said in a forum post last month. Fast forward four weeks and the official TERA website has released a compilation of the Day 1 journal entries. Check it out, and don't forget to get your lore fix with Elleon's Journal: Day 2 on the official Twitter feed.
