Here is a snippet from a Gamespot Q+A session with Sierra producer Chris Mahnken about Tribes 3, a single player game set in the Tribes universe which is being developped by Irrational Games. I believe that the last part demonstrates an interesting approach to the consequences of the player's actions, and this kind of approach could doubtless be used in other games. http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/tribesvengeance/preview_6026329.html Go check it out. GS: At the game's announcement it was mentioned that the story will be told from multiple viewpoints. Will you play as more than one character? Can you say anything about the main characters? CM: If you think of your favorite book or movie--unless it's The Graduate--it is probably not told through the eyes of one character. Yet first-person shooter games, despite being some of the most compelling storytelling vehicles in gaming, still seem to be using the pen-and-paper RPG model of "I made up a character and I'm going to play him until he's dead." Tribes: Vengeance uses an approach closer to movies and books to tell the story by giving players control of a handful of related characters throughout the game. Not only does this expose players to different weapons and equipment, it allows them to see how other characters in the story view each other. We have often discussed how this might work in-game. A guy and a girl approach an empty enemy base. Suddenly the massive gate shuts, separating them, leaving the guy inside and the girl outside. As the enemy approaches, the girl tells the guy to find the switch to open the gate while she holds them off outside. At this point the player takes control of the guy and scours the base for the switch while a timer counts in the upper-right corner. Once that mission is complete, the player then plays the girl, who fights off the enemy while the same timer counts down. If the player took his sweet time while playing the guy, they will have a chance to curse themselves when they have to survive that much longer as the girl. If they hurried, they will be rewarded for understanding the character and playing them properly. Again, this is just an example, but similar situations are planned for the single-player campaign. Using this approach allows the developers to create tension and consequences much more naturally than by making the player replay missions or by awarding some sort of bonus points. The gaming industry is mature, and the PC audience grows older every day. They are ready for a story closer to The Godfather than Mario Brothers. And we couldn't have picked a better team than Irrational to pull off such an ambitious move. ----------------------------------- As he says, this kind of approach is a more "natural" way of implementing consequences to player's actions. And I am sure that this kind of effect could be implemented in more games (even done with just a single character- ie. if the player has to revisit an area that they haven't properly fulfilled their objectives in). It seems silly to have (first-person perspective / story-based) games where you have to replay the "mission" if you don't do all the objectives properly. [edited by - Ketchaval on May 8, 2003 2:24:20 PM]

I really like that idea but do you know whats so bad about it (or more the industry in general)? I like it so much that i''m going to steal it and so will many other developers.

There is such an incredible lack of innovation these days the industry may well choke on it rather soon. Its all down to companies like EA who invented the ''yearly update / sequel'' business model that is slowly killing off all inovation.

It''s not that much of original, I recall a buncha games over years that had something similar.

A RPG for Dreamcast and Gamecube, Skis of Arcadia, has a *very* similar situation at some point, when the main party is separated.

Without knowing, each group gets into an island, searching for some treasure, but they enter in the island from the opposite sides.

The game then switches back and forth between the two groups, and if a group hits a switch, apparently nothing happened, but a door just opened in the othe group''s side. Until both groups reunite in the treasure chamber, after some puzzle solving.

Of course, I can''t recall any game that used this extensively. And the timer thing sounds awesome, since previously, all attempts of doing this dual character play thing always tried to be real-time.

I certainly like the idea. After the waste of time that Tribes 2 turned out to be, it''s definitely an innovation in the series, if not the industry. Its definitely not been done in a mainstream FPS recently, and I''d actually appreciate seeing similar (but not identical) conventions in FPS'' in the future.

I''m looking forward to seeing if Irrational manages to pull it off well.. I''m always very happy to see more focus on storytelling in the FPS genre, or any other genre for that matter.

****************************************

Brian Lacy
ForeverDream Studios

Comments? Questions? Curious?
brian@foreverdreamstudios.com

"I create. Therefore I am."

What kinds of consequences can we implement in games?
Ie. If you go through an area, but don''t destroy the spaceship that has just landed there, next time you can expect that they will have set up a small base there. Although if the player wasn''t asked to specifically do this, and they weren''t expecting to come back this way: this might be "unfair".

This kind of consequence could be done with "stated" goals (ie. blow up the generator), and with "unstated" goals (ie. it might be a good idea to destroy the ogre.

This kind of consequence is sometimes seen in branching campaign based games.

However, I think that just having more/ tougher enemies is a bit of a *unimaginitive* consequence to a player''s actions. Which is why I liked the idea of the timer in the bit I quoted from the Q+A.