storytelling
Latest
EVE video corner: "Future Proof"
There's no doubt about it that EVE Online can produce some stunning visuals and incredible stories. New Eden has been the setting for countless creative works, some featuring real gameplay and events and others pushing the limits of the prime fiction. Every so often, I come across a video so mind-blowing that it has to be shared. Last night CrazyKinux's Musing pointed me toward an awesome new EVE video that's been seven months in the making. Produced by Kale Ryoko, "Future Proof" tells the tale of a Caldari militia fleet on a combat mission for the state. Headed up by support commander Firefox of the Chimera "Overlord", the fleet must do all it takes to push through to their objective. Assisting with this twelve minute masterpiece is Veto corporation's Kyoko Sadako, the mastermind behind such incredible videos as "War Has Come" and "The Angel Cartel (Push Eject)". Made using some of EVE's art assets and the Unreal 3 Engine, Future Proof is a video that simply must be seen. Skip past the cut to watch both parts of the video in HD. The original version is available for download at the video's official page on the EVE forums.
The roles we play, part 2
The biggest mistake game designers make is substituting in reams of text where immersive gameplay should be. Game designers aren't just responsible for creating balanced and interesting game mechanics that work.
The roles we play
To some people, the term "role-playing" conjures up images of guys with tinfoil swords and shields shouting "Lighting bolt!". Role-playing in MMOs gets a similarly polarised reception, suggesting scenes of people playing pretend and speaking to each other in Shakespearean tone. To those of us that grew up with pen-and-paper role-playing games and single-player RPGs, it might mean the opportunity to play fantastic characters like wizards and rogues. At its core, however, role-playing is something far more subtle and fundamental than we sometimes give it credit for and it underpins the entire MMO genre. In playing an MMO, we are inherently playing roles that the game's developers have created for us. But do most MMO developers really know how to create engaging gameplay for us or are they failing to immerse us in their own chosen roles? In this probative opinion piece, I delve into the roles we play in MMOs and the things developers often do wrong when designing an immersive game experience.
BioWare considers storytelling challenge of multiplayer experiences
Outside of the MMO genre, solitary experiences are de rigueur for role-playing games, most of all those emerging from the venerable story specialists at BioWare. Speaking to VideoGamer.com, BioWare CEO and co-founder Dr. Ray Muzyka offered some insights into the company's considerations for co-op multiplayer gaming. "We haven't announced anything on that front yet, but those are interesting ideas," Muzyka explained. "They could make a great gameplay experience. Whether we'll do them or not remains to be decided."Among the things to be decided is how best to incorporate your party of friends with, well, your party of in-game friends. "It's hard to weave a great single-player storyline into a multiplayer experience," Muzyka said. "It's not impossible." The good doctor insists that it's been done and points to the developer's anticipated Star Wars MMO as proof. "We've done it, and we're doing it again now in Star Wars: The Old Republic. But it is challenging."
Five things content writers learned while westernizing Aion
In a developer journal over at MMORPG.com, NCsoft Content Writer David Noonan waxes on five things he and the "Aion Westernization Army" learned while stripping Aion down to its narrative essence and building it back up again. It was no easy task taking what was basically a fully-fledged successful Korean MMO and repackaging it for a totally different audience.It seems as though the writing team took the task seriously. In a game populated by over 2,500 quests, there's bound to be some repetitiion and uncreative storytelling going on but Aion's writers aren't simply giving in to the status quo. Your character's primary campaign quests may deliver the bulk of the narrative, but tons of other pieces are strewn about for players to discover that will be picked up by chatting with various NPCs. Based on this article, they seem to have taken a strategic approach to storytelling in the game. Story isn't shoved down your throat, but it is there if you are perceptive and take the time to actually read it. While many will surely plough ahead to reach the level cap as fast as possible, many others will stop to smell the roses. NCsoft wants to reward those flower-sniffers with a rich story experience.
"Why do we play MMOs" series concludes
When we last checked in with Tobold, he was just starting up a new blog series looking into why we play MMO games to a greater degree than single-player games. That isn't to say that the MMO genre is bigger than the single-player genre, just that MMO gamers tend to focus on massively multi-player games more than single-player games. His first two articles examined Storytelling and Gameplay elements in MMOs and since then he has done pieces on Challenge, Character Development, Rewards, Social Interactions, and Learning.The series just wrapped up and Tobold wrote a nice summary of why he thinks we mostly choose MMOs over single-player games. He feels that while we may play single-player games that have strong elements of story, gameplay, or challenge, the social aspects of MMOs seem to be the trump card. MMOs can have many weaker core elements but social interaction (direct) or simply participating in a persistent game world (indirect) appears to make up for those deficiencies. It's a long series to get through but well worth the read if you're into these kinds of high-thinking philosophical discussions.
Inquisitive blogging series delves into why we play MMOs
Why do we play MMOs? What is it about them that inspires us to pay a monthly subscription fee or whip out the credit card for a few microtransactions? This is an extremely valid and important question because the answers are key drivers of success for the genre. Without these answers, developers are simply throwing darts in a dark and empty pub.Popular MMO blogger Tobold is back from a short hiatus and asking this very question in order to disover the basic elements and motivations that make us choose to play these types of games. His introduction piece talks about some of the components he may cover, including: storytelling, character development, social interaction, polish, challenge, and achevements.Since the introduction piece, he has written two articles in the series: Storytelling and Gameplay. Based on the quality of stories found in MMOs, tools and design iterations that all but allow players to skip over quest text, and the fact that pure MMO environments don't facilitate epic storytelling very well, he doesn't feel as though storytelling is a major reason for why we play MMOs. With a little effort (read: a lot), it could be. As for gameplay, he believes that unless new quality titles start releasing with gameplay that diverges from basic hotbar button-mashing combat and simple crafting, MMOs will be forever stuck in a rut and compared to World of Warcraft.
DC Universe Online creators talk about S.T.A.R. Labs and game storylines
Comic-Con International is underway in San Diego, and we're already hearing some news about the superhero MMO genre. The latest info about DC Universe Online comes from a Wired article by Frank Rose which focuses on S.T.A.R. Labs, the futuristic glass and steel location familiar to anyone who grew up reading DC comic books or watched the Superman animated TV series. S.T.A.R. Labs, short for Scientific and Technical Advanced Research Laboratories, will be a hub of storyline activity in the MMO. It's fitting, as this is a place where great scientific advances are made, but also a place where things can go horribly wrong. This means it's perfect neutral ground to be incorporated into DC Universe Online, and the location will tie in with the respective storylines of the game's heroes and villains.
The challenges of storytelling in EVE Online's player-driven setting
MMO storylines finding their way into books is becoming increasingly common, but typically it's the fantasy titles we see in print. Guild Wars, Warhammer Online, and of course World of Warcraft all have their lore fleshed out in paperback form. But sci-fi lends itself well to novelization as well, and in the MMO scene as it exists today, EVE Online is a prime example. The game's far-future setting of New Eden is known for its sweeping warfare between vast empires, republics, and federations, but the game's lore has also shown there's a lot happening on a much smaller level. That sweeping warfare was the focus of the first EVE Online novel, The Empyrean Age written by Tony Gonzales, and this was tied in with the storyline events leading up to all-out war between the game's races. However, EVE's creators CCP Games will be showing a different side to the game with the second novel, The Burning Life, written by Hjalti Danielsson.
Lead writer of Earthrise sits down for an interview
Momchil Dilov is the very busy lead writer of the upcoming post-apocalyptic MMO Earthrise, but he found time in his schedule to sit down and chat about the new game's story, his influences, and how to write for gaming audiences.In his conversation with Gamesource.it, Dilov emphasized that players will be able to experience the story in a complete sandbox environment. He says that writing for books and movies is similar to writing for games, while writing for games you always have to keep the player in mind. You need to let your writing allow the player to experience the story, rather than simply giving the story to the player with your writing. As Dilov has said, "The greatest challenge in game writing is to tell the story, but not to confine the player inside it."The full interview with Dilov can be found in English over at Gamesource.it.
Emergent behavior to be produced in Trion's Heroes of Telara
Trion World Network is trying a very different approach with their fantasy based MMO, Heroes of Telara, by pushing into an area currently untouched by most MMOs -- emergence.Emergence is one of the aspects that many MMOs aspired to, only to drop in favor of static storytelling. The problem with emergence is that simple decisions would have a compounding impact on the world. Heroes would solve problems, only to perhaps create further problems with their implemented solutions. Most game architecture can't handle decision making of that nature, as it would need developers to constantly code in the new events that would occur.However, Heroes of Telara seems to be aspiring to that using server-side gaming. Their proposed method, as it appears in an interview between Trion's CEO, Lars Buttler, and GamesIndustry.biz, is to run the game entirely server side, letting developers change and alter the game on the fly. As Buttler puts it, "There are small events, there are big events, there is even emergent behaviour in the game that changes the game world. A lot of it is not even known to us, it's like the ghost in the machine. The game is almost alive, and that allows you to create heroes."
Fallen Earth's Lee Hammock on integrating story with the post-apocalyptic MMO
A post-apocalyptic setting can open up fantastic opportunities for storytelling. After all, it's the end of society as we know it. All our institutions are gone, our belief systems either torn away or seriously challenged. That resulting vacuum would no doubt be filled by new outlooks on the world and on life triggered by the apocalypse -- in rare cases optimistic, but more often utterly deranged. Then again, some survivors might seek to rectify the mistakes made by too many generations before the burn or plague wiped out humanity, and aim to rebuild a better world. There are so many possibilities, and these are some of the avenues that will be explored in the upcoming post-apocalyptic MMO Fallen Earth. Of course, this presents some real challenges for the game designers as well -- what is the best way to integrate these themes into the gameplay experience?Storytelling in Fallen Earth is the focus of a recent interview with lead designer Lee Hammock, who spoke with The MMO Gamer's Steven Crews about where story and gameplay will meet in the upcoming title.
BioWare's founders emphasize the importance of storytelling in their games
BioWare co-founders Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk were the keynote speakers at Game Developers Conference Canada in Vancouver, British Columbia yesterday. Their speech was titled Emotionally Engaging Narrative: Gaming's New Frontier. Given BioWare's huge portfolio of successful story-driven games, it's no surprise they had a lot to talk about.Not all game-types need a good narrative to be successful or fun (e.g., Bejewelled, Tetris, etc.), but MMORPGs could probably benefit from a greater emphasis on compelling and engaging storytelling. Both Ray and Greg talked about various types of narrative, including linear and non-linear, active and passive, and internal and external.We know that story will be the fourth pillar of design in Star Wars: The Old Republic and here's an example of external narrative they say we'll see when it releases: "Manipulation of world server data based on a broad range of user activities can actually change the game world." We're not quite sure what that means, but here are a couple guesses: Online voting to determine the next expansion race or fan fiction making it into the game's narrative.
EVE Evolved: A year of EVE Evolved - personal favourites
Happy birthday to the EVE Evolved column! The column is one year old today. Last week, I launched a competition for one lucky reader to win a fully fitted battleship of their choice. All they had to do was leave a comment and say which previous article in the column was their favourite. 44 people entered the competition before the April 25th deadline and a winner was selected via random number generator. Congratulations to regular Massively reader Vundal! As he's a relatively new player, Vundal opted to receive a fully fitted, rigged Drake battlecruiser and a set of implants rather than a battleship of the same value. In today's column, I celebrate this anniversary occasion with a little self-indulgence as I take a look at a few of my personal favourite column posts.
EVE Evolved: Storytelling in EVE Online
Storytelling is a major part of most MMOs, with each game having its own unique back-story and fiction. Fantasy settings like Everquest's world of Norrath have even been made into novels and some original fantasy literature like Lord of the Rings has conversely made its way into the MMO scene. Quests and expansions in an MMO usually lead the character through an interactive story where the player assumes the role of a hero. Although space-borne MMO EVE Online doesn't share that pattern and the the game's storyline doesn't develop during play, storytelling may actually be more important to EVE than it is to its fantasy counterparts. In the same way that EVE lends itself spectacularly to making videos, the EVE community has created some awesome fiction and there are some incredible real stories of in-game events. Combined with the wealth of prime fiction and the regular release of official chronicles, it's clear that storytelling is a big deal in EVE.Read on as I delve into the EVE storyline and the various forms of storytelling that players can expect to take part in. If being part of epic events and telling the story sounds like your cup of tea, perhaps EVE is for you.
GDC09: User generated stories in shardless worlds
Massively checked out an interesting session at GDC 2009 titled "User Generated Story: The Promise of Unsharded Worlds" by James Portnow, CEO and Creative Director of Divide by Zero. His talk was part of the Worlds in Motion Summit, and focused on how single worlds and their shared space can also give rise to shared stories. Portnow discussed ways that game designers can encourage and enable players to tell their own stories within the virtual space. *** The storylines we've seen thus far in MMOs aren't yet tapping the potential of massively multiplayer online games, Portnow relates, largely because they're not capitalizing on an MMOs greatest asset -- its players. Portnow says, "We haven't achieved stories that really rely upon the core of our media, the playerbase that a MMO environment environment gives us. We haven't achieved player-driven stories really directed by players themselves. And lastly we haven't achieved meaningful stories."Why do people skip the quest text? It's because they have no stake in it. Unlike the experience they get from single player games, their actions don't affect the the world they play in. Story, then, doesn't add to immersion and thus players don't feel engaged by quests. The solution then is to unshard worlds and give agency back to the players, with real choices, real consequences, and less restrictions. %Gallery-48460%
Champions Online dev Randy Mosiondz on storytelling and gameplay
Writing for Examiner.com, Daniel Nations recently interviewed Champions Online lead designer Randy Mosiondz about the balancing act between providing guided gameplay and exploration. The interview also touches upon Champions Online's gameplay across different environments. Namely, Mosiondz explains a bit about the challenges that players will face in the underwater area of Lemuria with its full 3-D movement capabilities, and how some player powers will be modified for use underwater. Also a nice touch is that the discussion heads into his roots as a writer for pen and paper games. Mosiondz explains the differences in storytelling between pen and paper games and MMOs, and why it can be tricky to bring a story with lasting consequences to a massively multiplayer online game. Check out the Champions Online developer interview over at Examiner for more about what the Cryptic Studios super-hero title will offer.
Mad Max game adaptation still 'a couple of years' away
If you've long harbored dreams of motoring monstrous automobiles down long stretches of highway in post-apocalyptic Australia, they probably won't be coming to fruition any time soon. Mad Max director George Miller, in an interview with MTV Multiplayer, confirmed that while preliminary work on a video game adaptation of his Gibson-infused vehicular thriller has begun, the finished title is still "a couple of years away." Miller, a self-professed unskilled gamer, says he sees real potential in making such an adaptation, and in the gaming medium as a whole. He sees the Mad Max game, which he's working on in collaboration with God of War II director Cory Barlog, as "an opportunity to make a novel," noting the evolution of storytelling in games in recent years. We appreciate rich stories in games as much as the next guy, but we hope Miller realizes he also has the "opportunity" to make a badass action game as well.
NCsoft NorCal and ArenaNet weigh in on storytelling's future in MMOs
Our sister site Joystiq recently had the chance to speak with several developers about the future hurdles facing storytelling in games. Two members of the MMO industry were in the mix, and their views on how to tell a story in future MMOs are each a very focused snapshot at how City of Heroes and Guild Wars each approach story. With City of Heroes, it's not about the level of tech, but about how much the audience cares about the story. As for Guild Wars, the opposite seems to be the case: it's about learning how to tell interesting stories with new tools.We don't think either method is wrong, as both views are a product of their origin. Namely, of what the developer has learned and their audience has demanded. We're certain that both developers will continue produce story within games that evoke unexpected responses from us, for better or worse.
Jim Lee on how he came to work on DC Universe Online
Comic book fans and gamers looking forward to DC Universe Online are likely familiar with the work of Jim Lee. What some comic fans may be less familiar with is Lee's interest in videogames, even before he got involved with DCUO as Executive Creative Director. Indeed, Jim Lee's twin passions in life are comics and videogames, he said in an interview with 1UP's Billy Berghammer. Lee discusses how he came to work on a project that brought those passions together -- DC Universe Online -- and what he's doing to breathe life into the game. The interview ranges from Lee's first steps into the comic book industry to creating the best-selling comic book in history, and beyond. Lee also brings up some of the goals he and the DC Universe Online team have in terms of storytelling, including the introduction of tertiary characters from the DC universe that haven't ever been featured in videogames before. (Ambush Bug and The Metal Men, we're looking at you.) "Introducing this to a crowd of gamers that never has seen these characters before is really exciting. Putting them in context and creating storylines with these characters is really the fun part of working on this game, and we're in the meat of it," Lee says.
