No, this isn''t an announcement about an existing project. Its partly about my own ideas, but more importantly its about a theory and how it can be implemented. People don''t think that MMORPGs can really tell a story. So far, the games industry has proved them right. Even the most story-centered games (Asheron''s Call, Anarchy Online) just didn''t have what it takes to make me feel like I was a part of something greater than myself. Glorified chatrooms, some call them, others point out that its all about walking around and killing things and leveling up and getting cool loot. (A few people agree with both those assessments and actually prefer it that way, or they think story-based games are stupid. Well, if you''re one of those, I''m not talking to you. ) My theory is that, given the right set of circumstances, the right background, a MMORPG can tell a truly deep, inspiring story of loss, courage, and hope. I have developed a world that I believe fits this category, but I''m interested in hearing other ideas as well. For those who have any desire to learn a tiny bit about my own ideas, check out the thread in Game Writing called "Original Game Setting -- Concept Writeup", but what I''m interested in hearing in THIS thread, is ideas on how MMORPGs can be instilled with a really immersive, emotional, or story-rich atmosphere. Brian Lacy Smoking Monkey Studios Comments? Questions? Curious? brian@smoking-monkey.org "I create. Therefore I am."

how about a brief outline of your theory?

I think that the upcoming game City of Heroes is trying to do that. I don''t know how successful it is going to be, but i''ve been reading some stuff about some of the design decisions and it''s pretty neat to see that this guy is actually trying hard to advance the idea of what an MMORPG can be.

I never played a MMORPG though, the idea of monthly fees is a big turn-of for me.

How would you get around the idea that some people like to work on the quests alone, and others will be on quests that are out of sync with the quests that others have decided to pursue?

I guess I''m thinking that your design involves occasional world-impacting events that affect the evolving storylines set up by the quests themselves. The greatest impact will be felt by the players that happen to be on the right quest at the right time.

Otherwise, the quests alone would tell their own mini-stories, some profound, some not so much.

I can see where a fortress that is a home town would build up its own reputation with the players that start there. Then a raiding horde destroys it, and the only hope for properity in the land again is to lay seige to their stronghold. Then it is discovered they were sent by some other more powerful enemy that will amass another attack unless that enemy is thwarted. That might be one example of a profound story of loss.

"I guess I''m thinking that your design involves occasional world-impacting events that affect the evolving storylines set up by the quests themselves. The greatest impact will be felt by the players that happen to be on the right quest at the right time."

I came up with this idea before, but the problem with it is the fact that you would need a lot of people whose job is to come up with these plot twists.
One of the ideas I came up with was that a great theif could raid a city and nobody could catch him. When someone finally does, this person discovers that the theif is none other than the king''s very own son. Now the player has a moral dilemma (I love putting moral dilemmas in my stories ) : kill the theif and get charged with killing royal blood (a headsman''s offense) or let him go to steal more people''s stuff.

"Although I am a beginner with programming, I am the master of stories."

setting up main story developments and cataclysmic events that involve the entire game, arent as hard as some make it out to be. Indeed, game making is difficult, tis why there are very few exceptional MMORPG''s out there, but it can be done.

The same way that the game saves your held items and weapons, and learned abilities and what-not, the game could also be created to tell the difference between what is there and what is not. For instance: Say you go on a multi-player quest and there are 4 people joined into a group that is going along with this specific quest at this specific time. A castle or fort happens to be destroyed during this quest. Now, for all the people who were in the quest, that castle or fort is forever changed unless they go on another quest that happens to fix it. People who have already gone on that quest, can no longer join a group that is travelling that quest.

Therefore, the persons who went on the quest may see a shattered, burnt to the ground castle while other players who have not been on that particular quest, continue to see the same thing as had before.

This could be accomplished many different ways I am sure. One would be to have the castle set up as seperate 3d models instead of part of a solid terrain. And upon quest, a trigger is activated that changes the graphx of this 3d model to something else. As long as the after-models are the exact proportions as the previous, just different looking, or layed out the same but different.. should work perfectly .... I may add something similar to this if my game ever goes multiplayer

Anyone ever played an old BBS game named L.O.R.D? Legend of the Red Dragon. It was an online RPG, fairly simple, and once someone had destroyed the dragon, the story was reset and whoever killed it was reset to the beginning level but with an extra little bonus to show that he had killed the dragon once before. Everyone else stayed at their previous level.

You could arrange a MMORPG like that so that the game world had a recursive story line, one that built up to something huge and then reset itself upon finishing. It doesn''t need to be linear however. Depending on what quests were done and how they were done then it could affect the end out come. What one player does could have a big effect on the entire game world.. until it is reset that is.

"The human mind is limited only by the bounds which we impose upon ourselves." -iNfuSeD

iNfuSeD: Good idea, but I might really hate to play that. I prefer something that evolves(quests created by game world), not one that resets(your idea) or goes about randomly(even with a staff of writers, any MMORPG that got it ideas outside of the game world is random to me). I still think it could work though, just look at the success of Castlevania despite its many many many reincarnations. I think that''s the trick though, every retelling needs to be a reincarnation, not a repeat.

quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster
setting up main story developments and cataclysmic events that involve the entire game, arent as hard as some make it out to be. Indeed, game making is difficult, tis why there are very few exceptional MMORPG''s out there, but it can be done.

The same way that the game saves your held items and weapons, and learned abilities and what-not, the game could also be created to tell the difference between what is there and what is not. For instance: Say you go on a multi-player quest and there are 4 people joined into a group that is going along with this specific quest at this specific time. A castle or fort happens to be destroyed during this quest. Now, for all the people who were in the quest, that castle or fort is forever changed unless they go on another quest that happens to fix it. People who have already gone on that quest, can no longer join a group that is travelling that quest.

Therefore, the persons who went on the quest may see a shattered, burnt to the ground castle while other players who have not been on that particular quest, continue to see the same thing as had before.

This could be accomplished many different ways I am sure. One would be to have the castle set up as seperate 3d models instead of part of a solid terrain. And upon quest, a trigger is activated that changes the graphx of this 3d model to something else. As long as the after-models are the exact proportions as the previous, just different looking, or layed out the same but different.. should work perfectly .... I may add something similar to this if my game ever goes multiplayer

To me, that is no longer an MMORPG, it is a distributed RPG. More to the point, the gameplay is more restricted than just choosing who can join a quest. It would limit player iteractions much more and that''s a lot of the fun of an MMORPG.

The trick with MMORPG storytelling, as I see it, is that one needs to take more of a hands-off approach than with other games. I''m not just talking off the cuff though... this theory is an extrapolation from my experience with human-run RPGs of various sizes.

I''ve played in P&P RPGs such as D&D 3ed where one GM ran four or five PCs, and also in live action roleplaying games where two or three storytellers ran a group of 25 or so players. The play experiences and the roles of the GM were remarkably different between the two games.

In the smaller game, the player characters were key figures in a series of important events. The game revolved entirely around their adventures, and these adventures took them far and wide to many unique and unheard of lands, wherein they accomplished things nobody had done before and changed the course of history. The GM''s responsibility was large, and his hand was evident in every event; he personally played every person and creature encountered. The emphasis was on exploration and combat rather than interaction. The characters, while interesting individuals, served mainly to advance the course of events.

In the larger live-action game, the players were still important people, but they varied in power and influence, and even the greatest among them was no world-shaker. The games mainly concerned their machinations and power struggles against each other, within a well defined geographic area and zone of influence. The Storytellers'' responsibility to move the story along was less, as the players chose amongst themselves how to respond to events, and were often more involved in internal disputes than external events. No single character or group of characters was the "hero" of any story but his own. In fact, my own character''s story was that of a zealous foot soldier thwarted and frustrated by the politicking of his superiors - entertaining to play, but certainly not the plot of the average CRPG. Because there was nothing to explore, and great risk in combat, the emphasis was most definitely on in-character interaction and developing one''s own story. The characters were an end in themselves. The story, supplied in the form of independent events related to the players by the Storytellers, was secondary.

To extrapolate to MMORPG, the first thing that a MMORPG player should realize is that in a city of a thousand heroes, he will most likely not be the one to save the world singlehanded. Some people will be at the right place at the right time, and others will work to make themselves the fulcrum of history, but most people will simply be. Once this is realized, the objective can then shift away from "saving the world" or "winning the game" and shift toward the idea of creating a goal for a character, and playing out the story of meeting that goal (or failing to). The real end of the game is not to do interesting things but to be an interesting person.

The MMORPG gamemaster should therefore not concentrate on building fixed "quests" into the game, but instead try to create a system wherein every character has needs, and there are as many ways to satisfy these needs as there are characters. Instead of giving players a specific goal - "Steal the Ruby of the Hapsburgs" - merely let the goal exist - "The Ruby of the Hapsburgs is a priceless gem, coveted by many." In this way, there are many "quests" which could naturally emerge from the Ruby - a merchant wishes to become wealthy enough to buy it, a jeweler desires to be the one to set it in the perfect necklace, a thief wants to prove his worth by lifting it, a band of knights makes it their sworn duty to protect it in the name of its former royal owners, and so on. The mere existence of something truly unique in a game gets everyone interested in it.

The MMORPG gamemaster is also to a large degree not in control of what happens in the game, nor should he try to be. The (possibly apocryphal) story of the assassination of Lord British is a perfect example of this phenomenon. Rather than rigorously tying the players to some sort of established plot, history, and social order, it is more interesting to let them create their own traditions and power structures with some gentle prodding from the GMs.

I think I''ve gone on long enough in what is supposed to be somebody else''s thread. Just tossing out ideas.

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-SpittingTrashcan

You can''t have "civilization" without "civil".

First warning: This is going to be VERY long.

quote: Original post by Hase
how about a brief outline of your theory?

The theory is basically just that building a truly dynamic and meaningful MMORPG is possible, that there are ways to give players in a MMORPG a much more intriguing experience than just a glorified chat room or meaningless character buffing contest.

As for my own idea, I think I''ll outline that too in a later post. I want to respond to people''s comments first.

quote: Original post by Kugels
I think that the upcoming game City of Heroes is trying to do that. I don''t know how successful it is going to be, but i''ve been reading some stuff about some of the design decisions and it''s pretty neat to see that this guy is actually trying hard to advance the idea of what an MMORPG can be.

I never played a MMORPG though, the idea of monthly fees is a big turn-of for me.

I think monthly fees are a horrible profit model for games. Unfortunately, neither I nor anyone else out there has come up with a better one for a commercial game. But I agree, its a big turn-off. There are a number of MMORPGs out there that are mildly interesting to me, but I''ve given up on playing mildly interesting games at a cost of $10+/month, myself.

I''ve heard of City of Heroes, isn''t that the one with the superheroes? Looks promising, but I''m not about to trust any more empty promises from MMORPG developers until I see the game in action.

quote: Original post by Waverider
How would you get around the idea that some people like to work on the quests alone, and others will be on quests that are out of sync with the quests that others have decided to pursue?

I guess I''m thinking that your design involves occasional world-impacting events that affect the evolving storylines set up by the quests themselves. The greatest impact will be felt by the players that happen to be on the right quest at the right time.

Otherwise, the quests alone would tell their own mini-stories, some profound, some not so much.

I can see where a fortress that is a home town would build up its own reputation with the players that start there. Then a raiding horde destroys it, and the only hope for properity in the land again is to lay seige to their stronghold. Then it is discovered they were sent by some other more powerful enemy that will amass another attack unless that enemy is thwarted. That might be one example of a profound story of loss.

Ummm... no. Are you basing these comments on Everquest, or some other game? I''ve never played Everquest, and I''ve never played a game like what i think you''re describing, with limitless specific "quests." Are these quests generated by the server? Are they pre-written by the designers?

Obviously you''ve always got to have something for the player to do -- most MMORPGs I''ve played have vast lands filled with NPCs or monsters that the players combat against, building up their skills and their coffers. In these games "quests" are generally limited to raiding a specific area for the umpteenth time, only for the inhabitants to spawn again another day. A true quest oriented game would be preferable, but I think you''d have to build an army of volunteer quest-writers (ideally being experienced RPG game masters).

My own ideas incorporate an idea somewhat along these lines, but take a different approach to providing material for sub-stories.

quote: Original post by Nathaniel Hammen
"I guess I''m thinking that your design involves occasional world-impacting events that affect the evolving storylines set up by the quests themselves. The greatest impact will be felt by the players that happen to be on the right quest at the right time."

I came up with this idea before, but the problem with it is the fact that you would need a lot of people whose job is to come up with these plot twists.
One of the ideas I came up with was that a great theif could raid a city and nobody could catch him. When someone finally does, this person discovers that the theif is none other than the king''s very own son. Now the player has a moral dilemma (I love putting moral dilemmas in my stories ) : kill the theif and get charged with killing royal blood (a headsman''s offense) or let him go to steal more people''s stuff.

"Although I am a beginner with programming, I am the master of stories."

Interesting. Sounds like a D&D plot hook (a quality one though, I must admit). As for your comment about needing "a lot of people whose job it is to come up with these plot twists" -- I mentioned this a moment ago, but the truth is that for the longest time I''ve wondered if thats not such a bad idea. Give writers, DMs, Modders, and designers a playground with rules and limitations (to keep them in line) then let them go at it. Kind of like Neverwinter Nights purports to do, but in a MMORPG environment. A friend even mentioned another game that does/did this back in the day -- not sure if he was referring to Meridian 59 or Underlight (I haven''t played either, but I probably should).

quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster
setting up main story developments and cataclysmic events that involve the entire game, arent as hard as some make it out to be. Indeed, game making is difficult, tis why there are very few exceptional MMORPG''s out there, but it can be done.

I agree..

quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster
The same way that the game saves your held items and weapons, and learned abilities and what-not, the game could also be created to tell the difference between what is there and what is not. For instance: Say you go on a multi-player quest and there are 4 people joined into a group that is going along with this specific quest at this specific time. A castle or fort happens to be destroyed during this quest. Now, for all the people who were in the quest, that castle or fort is forever changed unless they go on another quest that happens to fix it. People who have already gone on that quest, can no longer join a group that is travelling that quest.

Therefore, the persons who went on the quest may see a shattered, burnt to the ground castle while other players who have not been on that particular quest, continue to see the same thing as had before.

This could be accomplished many different ways I am sure. One would be to have the castle set up as seperate 3d models instead of part of a solid terrain. And upon quest, a trigger is activated that changes the graphx of this 3d model to something else. As long as the after-models are the exact proportions as the previous, just different looking, or layed out the same but different.. should work perfectly .... I may add something similar to this if my game ever goes multiplayer

Unless I''m misunderstanding you, I disagree on some of what you''re saying here. I think that for a really quality MMORPG to succeed, it would have to be fully dynamic as well as permanent. For instance, if a group of players destroy a castle, passers-by should be able to see it being destroyed. It should be permanently destroyed, unless later players rebuild it, in which case passers-by should be able to see that it is being rebuilt. I know there are technical challenges, but they can be overcome.

OK -- now to clarify my real point. It actually had very little to do with quests and such. The point I''m most interested in is evoking emotion, symbolism, and/or SOME kind of MEANING through a MMORPG. I think the best way to do that is through quality story-telling and with a carefully developed plot.

I''ll post my ideas here in a moment. They may not demonstrate what I''m talking about as well as I''d like -- I know they aren''t perfect. But if nothing else it will be a good exercise for me to write it all down again (I could go to my written material, but most of the documents I have are like 5 or 10 pages long).

I''d still be very interested in hearing you guys'' ideas for massively multiplayer games with a taste of emotion or meaning, or just methods for developing such a game.